Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008) is a kinetic documentary portrait of the journalist and cultural provocateur whose gonzo style blurred the line between reporting and performance. Focusing on Thompson’s heyday from 1965 to 1975, the film traces his combustible mix of bravado, Wild Turkey, drugs, and an unrelenting appetite for exposing hypocrisy, showing how his work gored sacred cows and reshaped American letters.

Director Alex Gibney pieces together never-before-seen home movies, candid audiotapes, archival footage, and passages from unpublished manuscripts to create an intimate, often hilarious, and occasionally harrowing account of a writer at full throttle. The result is both celebration and reckoning: a vivid, incisive look at a man whose prose was as manic and clear-eyed as his life, and at the chaotic era that made him an icon.