Scientology on Film: Documentary, Reconstruc6on, Fic6on Carole M. Cusack Introduc6on The Church of Scientology, a controversial new religion, has featured significantly in film and television. This chapter considers cinema>c representa>ons of Scientology, focusing on: Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015) based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 book of the same name (Zeller 2017); Louis Theroux’s documentary My Scientology Movie (2015), directed by John Dower, which breaks the boundaries of representa>on simpliciter by engaging in reconstruc>ons of Scientology prac>ces by actors and former Scientologists (Bushon 2020); and Paul Thomas Anderson’s feature film The Master (2012), which shows Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014) as Lancaster Dodd, an L. Ron Hubbard-type figure, founder of a group called the Cause (Petsche 2017). The directors of these films have different inten>ons and their art results in a mul>-faceted examina>on of Scientology. Gibney focuses on ex-Scientologists who are unsympathe>c to their former religion, and he cra\s a realis>c interview-based image of Scientology, situated within a historical overview of the founder and the Church. Dower and Theroux focus on ex- Scientologists who have also rejected Hubbard’s worldview, but they incorporate reconstruc>ons of key events and personnel for the benefit of the audience. Anderson’s fic>onal story conveys something of Hubbard’s personal charisma and the appeal he had for those who sought an alterna>ve religio-spiritual path in the 1950s and 1960s. Scientology on film is first contextualised within the culture of wri>ng about Scientology by both insiders and outsiders, and the three films are then examined. I conclude that film is a powerful medium to communicate informa>on about Scientology to a wider audience than is usually gained by the Church’s outreach, academic publica>ons, ex-member memoirs, or popular ‘cult-bus>ng’ books about the religion. The Church of Scientology (CoS) was founded in 1954 by Lafaye‘e Ronald Hubbard (1911- 1986). Now seventy years old, Scientology con>nues to be the paradigma>c new religious movement (NRM) that commentators like to pillory and excoriate (Lewis 2015). This default stance is reinforced by the rela>vely small amount of academic scholarship on CoS, and the hos>le actude that the religion demonstrates toward journalists, researchers, ex-members, and a range of outsiders who have engaged in cri>cism of Scientology’s founder, doctrines, or ins>tu>onal structures (Peckham 1998; Doherty 2020: 108-109). The primary reason for the lack of scholarship on CoS was Scientology’s reluctance to permit academic research and desire to control the published outcomes, such that they presented the religion in a posi>ve way. The first book-length study was The Road to Total Freedom: A Sociological Analysis of Scientology by Roy Wallis (Wallis 1977 [1976]). The difficul>es faced by Wallis led Harriet Whitehead, who did doctoral research on Scientology in the 1970s, to delay publica>on of Renuncia@on and Reforma@on: A Study of Conversion in an American Sect un>l 1987, the year a\er Hubbard’s death; moreover, its bland and nonspecific >tle meant that it a‘racted li‘le a‘en>on (Whitehead 1987). The third substan>al monograph, Hugh B. Urban’s The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion (Urban 2011) was released a\er 2008, the ‘hinge’ year when the internet finally ended Scientology’s control of its secret teachings (the