This four-part documentary series directed by Liz Garbus (What Happened, Miss Simone?) and written by Sara Enright (Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes) follows media mogul Rupert Murdoch as his children compete to see who will inherit his multibillion-dollar media empire. (four 47- to 56-min. episodes)
DYNASTY: THE MURDOCHS
What’s it rated? TV-MA
What’s it worth, Anna? Full price
What’s it worth, Glen? Full price
Where’s it showing? Netflix
Glen The Murdock clan really knows how to put the “nasty” in “dynasty.” What a nest of vipers. Through interviews with journalists and private communications between the feuding family members, we get a picture of the cutthroat battle that fractured a family. I have to say, Rupert’s personality and ruthlessness was clearly passed on to his children, especially Lachlan, Elisabeth, and James. Rupert’s eldest daughter, Prudence MacLeod, from his first marriage, wisely chose to sit out the battle. As journalist Jim Rutenberg noted in the docuseries, “[Rupert] wasn’t raising children, he was raising possible successors.” Maybe it’s nice to be that rich, or maybe that kind of wealth and power is soul destroying.
Anna Honestly, you couldn’t pay me $1.1 billion or whatever the Murdoch kids wound up with in the settlement to have a toxic family dynamic like this. Rupert Murdoch is gross, and he surrounds himself with gross people and has taught his children that grossness equals success. The media mogul built an empire that boasts abhorrent conservative “values,” abuses and degrades women, and places profit over people with each and every boardroom decision. While this series is a great deep dive into the family and the true-life story that inspired Succession, this family is unpleasant to watch. How things unfolded is absolutely bonkers, but I walked away from it even more disgusted with the amount of power this man has managed to hold for decades. He’s a straight-up Batman villain come to life.
Glen It’s still hard to believe Rupert managed to escape the 2011 Milly Dowler phone hacking scandal when it was discovered his News of the World publication had hacked into a murdered girl’s phone for information. Apparently, his reporters had been hacking the Royals for years. He just slimed out from under it by pretending to be ignorant and a doddering old man. No way! This guy is savvy and calculating and devoid of empathy. He even throws his son James under the bus. Who pits his children against each other? We also meet three of his five wives. Turns out, money can buy you love, but not lasting love. All that money, and these people have wallowed in misery. I almost—almost—feel sorry for them.
Anna Unfortunately, it’s easier to believe than it should be. Look at where we are with the Epstein files, the hard evidence against many in power, and the complete lack of action. Wealth is perhaps the ugliest of human inventions, and the Murdochs embody that. It’s hard to not feel sorry for his children in many ways, and his wives, because it seems that ultimately everyone in Rupert’s life is simply a game piece on his chessboard. He turns on them left and right and treats his status and his company as some sort of reward. Talk about trading your soul—his world solely revolves around himself, and his legacy unfortunately continues as Fox News continues to spew hatred and lies. The four-part series doesn’t shy away from letting his children also show us who they are and how little sympathy they truly deserve. None of them are particularly kind to each other, and that speaks to the cutthroat dynamic their household held growing up. This series made me very grateful to be wealthy in the ways that count. ∆
Arts Editor Glen Starkey and freelancer Anna Starkey write Split Screen. Comment at gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in April 30 – May 7, 2026.