Roger & Me

Roger & Me is Michael Moore's first documentary, released in 1989. It looks at what happened to his hometown of Flint, Michigan, when General Motors shut down a series of its plants there and moved production elsewhere, leaving around 30,000 workers without jobs. The town had depended heavily on the automaker for its livelihood. Moore turns his camera on the people who bore the consequences, and on his own long, mostly unsuccessful effort to sit down with Roger B. Smith, the company's chief executive, to ask him about the closures. The film mixes this pursuit with scenes of the residents' daily struggles and the city's efforts to reinvent itself.

Moore directs, writes and produces, and also appears on screen as himself, alongside residents such as Rhonda Britton and Fred Ross, and public figures including Smith and Bob Eubanks. The film was made independently and took about eight million dollars worldwide, a strong result for a documentary. Ratings reflect a wide audience: on IMDb it holds 7.5 out of 10 from around 28,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.1 from a much smaller 326 votes. A film critics' score of 8.9 from 31 reviews is notably higher than the audience figures.

It stands as the first of seven features Moore has directed to date, followed by Canadian Bacon, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story and Fahrenheit 11/9.