The Apprentice

Sebastian Stan and Succession’s Jeremy Strong give career-best performances as Trump and Roy Cohn – the notorious attorney who became his mentor just as he was seeking to escape his father’s shadow. Displaying a glint of charm that never fully eclipses Trump’s unwavering ambition, Stan’s portrayal perfectly contrasts with Strong’s, who renders Cohn (previously a key character in Angels in America) as a sinister and fear-mongering practitioner of the dark arts in American public life.

Continuing his singular examination of the coruscating nature of power that he began in Border and Holy Spider, Abbasi here widens his perspective to examine a city in the throes of a power grab. Different film stock is used to reflect the decades and changing fortunes of New York, as it emerged from near-bankruptcy to become a financial behemoth. And at its centre lie two figures who would cut a path that reflected and then reshaped a country’s psyche.