O.J. Simpson: The movies, documentaries and interviews that explain him best (2024)

Then he was something grimmer: the man found financially liable for Brown and Goldman’s deaths in a civil trial, the co-author of a purportedly speculative book called “If I Did It” that described the killings; and a felon, sentenced to 33 years for kidnapping and armed robbery. Released after nine, he reinvented himself in his final years as a discomfiting influencer, weighing in on social media about everything from football to the media to former president Donald Trump.

What to make of this life? You could start with some primary and secondary sources: the films in which Simpson appeared, the documentaries and dramatizations that captured his most infamous episodes; the ephemera of that trial. Here’s our guide.

Simpson’s acting career started in 1968 with uncredited bit parts in television shows and movies, just before his NFL career got underway. His popularity on the field would secure him bigger roles in movies such as “The Klansman,” “The Towering Inferno,” “Killer Force,” “Capricorn One” and “Fire Power.” He dabbled in made-for-television movies, too, including “Goldie and the Boxer” (and its sequel), “A Killing Affair” (one of Simpson’s highly praised performances) and “Student Exchange.” He even appeared in one episode of the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries “Roots” as an African tribesman. — Herb Scribner

Simpson starred in ads for Hertz beginning in 1975. You’d see Simpson running through the airport to pick up a rental car and say, “Nobody does it better than Hertz!” with a smile. His commercial appearances were a sign that his stardom had transcended sports and had crossed over into the mainstream. “In the public’s mind, O.J. was Hertz,” Kara Swisher wrote in The Post in 1994. — Herb Scribner

Simpson was no stranger to documentaries early in his career. In 1974, director George Romero — creator of “Night of the Living Dead” and its franchise of zombie sequels — profiled the NFL star in “O.J. Simpson: Juice on the Loose.” The documentary highlighted his college and professional success, leading up to him becoming the first professional football player to rush for over 2,000 yards in a single season. — Herb Scribner

As Simpson’s football career was drawing to a close, and with acting credits in “The Towering Inferno” and “The Cassandra Crossing” under his belt, Simpson became the second athlete to host “Saturday Night Live,” which he did on Feb. 25, 1978. Most notably in the episode, Simpson was dressed as a conehead for his opening monologue and played the brother of John Belushi’s Samurai Futaba character in a “Samurai Night Fever” skit. The duo Ashford & Simpson were featured as musical guests.

Simpson’s trial would later be the subject of several skits on the show. — Samantha Chery

Simpson’s fame brought him a starring role in the “Naked Gun” franchise, an ’80s comedic take on police action movies. In the three films, Simpson played the unlucky Detective Fred Nordberg, who finds himself in painful situations but often proves invincible. In 2023, for the 35th anniversary of the franchise’s first film, director David Zucker told the Hollywood Reporter why Simpson was cast: “We always cast people in our movies precisely because they had not been in a comedy. When we cast Leslie Nielsen in ‘Airplane!,’ he was the fourth choice; other actors turned the part down, and he was unknown. But we wanted somebody who had never been in a comedy. As a person, he was a very nice guy, a great actor, a prankster, kind of a closet anarchist.” — Herb Scribner

“This has nothing to do with race!” O.J. Simpson says in this long conversation with Ross Becker. It wasn’t the first post-trial interview with Simpson to air, but it made waves for a reason: Simpson produced and sold it. Becker was hired for the project after he quit his anchorman job at KCOP-TV Channel 13 in Los Angeles, citing his objections to “sold-out, disgusting, tabloid” journalism.

In the interview, which could be ordered for $29.95 by calling 1-800-OJ-TELLS, Becker asks Simpson directly about his guilt, details of the case and his alibi. Simpson also discusses his relationship with Paula Barbieri and heavily criticizes the media for making the case about race and claims he has a broad basis of support. “If I see a thousand people outside of my house,” he says, “995 of those people, White women from Iowa, from Georgia, from Canada, from South Africa even, have all been encouraging, telling me to keep my head up.” Simpson also gives a detailed tour of his Rockingham home, in which he comments extensively — with evidence markers and photographs — on aspects of the case. — Lili Loofbourow

After his arrest, both Newsweek and Time put Simpson’s mug shot on their covers. But Time hired Matt Mahurin, a progenitor of the then-arcane practice of computer-assisted photo illustration, to doctor the photo. Time’s version was rendered with noticeably darker skin than Newsweek’s. You didn’t have to be a race theorist or media expert to see a problem. For some, the cover confirmed widespread media bias against Black people in criminal reporting, this time rendered overtly.

Two people could look at the same image, one seeing obvious and shocking racism, the other seeing a triumph in photojournalism. It was a prescient omen for how radically divisive reactions to the trial would become in the months ahead. And a lesson for photo editors that is still taught in journalism schools. — Shane O’Neill

Just a month before Simpson’s trial began, Norm Macdonald took over the chair of Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” — or, as he would call it, “the fake news.” Thus began a multiyear comedy assault on the retired football star. The barrage would eventually get Macdonald into trouble with NBC executive and Simpson golf buddy Don Ohlmeyer, who demanded an end to the O.J. jokes. Which led to more O.J. jokes. (Sample: “Well, it is finally official. Murder is legal in the state of California.”) Late in 1997, NBC removed Macdonald, leading to one of the most genius exit interviews in television history, conducted by none other than David Letterman. — Geoff Edgers

Seemingly every person involved in the Simpson trial wound up writing a book about it: defense attorneys Johnnie Cochran (“Journey to Justice”) and Robert Shapiro (“The Search for Justice”); and prosecutors Christopher Darden (“In Contempt,” co-written with novelist Jess Walter) and Marcia Clark (“Without a Doubt,” followed by a string of legal thrillers). Vanity Fair reporter Dominick Dunne even ended up writing a novel, “Another City, Not My Own,” which unabashedly revels in what the Hollywood glitterati made of it all. (Critic Gary Indiana did not approve.) Then there was the sordid saga around the publication of Simpson’s own “If I Did It,” first canceled by HarperCollins and ultimately released in an edition including commentary from Goldman’s family and Simpson’s ghostwriter, Pablo Fenjves.

Jeffrey Toobin’s “The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson” is widely considered the definitive account, expanding on his reporting for the New Yorker — including his revelatory findings about the racism of LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman. Some critics remarked on the gap between the book’s criticisms of the prosecution and Toobin’s more flattering portrayal of Clark in his profile of her at the time. Still, this cynical, comprehensive view into the lawyers’ strategies remains the first, best way to learn about how the trial unfolded. — Sophia Nguyen

In 2016, FX’s “American Crime Story” anthology series launched with “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” a 10-episode season starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as the accused. The courtroom drama, based on Toobin’s book, delved into both the actual case and the thorny internal politics of each legal team: the defense, which included Robert Kardashian (David Schwimmer), Robert Shapiro (John Travolta) and Johnnie Cochran (Courtney B. Vance); and the prosecution led by Marcia Clark (Sarah Paulson) and Christopher Darden (Sterling K. Brown).

The series could skew a bit camp and over-the-top at times, as you might expect of anything produced by Ryan Murphy; those who followed the online fervor might recall an unhinged supercut of Schwimmer’s Kardashian yelling his nickname for Simpson: “Juice!” But it also earned great acclaim for sharp writing and layered acting, landing the Emmy for outstanding limited series and acting trophies for Vance, Paulson and Brown. — Sonia Rao

ESPN’s award-winning documentary “O.J.: Made in America,” from Emmy-winning director Ezra Edelman, walked audiences through the story of Simpson — from football star to murder suspect. The 2016 five-part miniseries explored Simpson’s life and career, beginning with his rise to fame as a college and NFL running back before becoming an advertising and marketing star. The series revisited Simpson’s impact on rising racial tension in Los Angeles in the ’90s and his marriage to Nicole Brown. The documentary takes audiences through the whirlwind of a legal drama, detailing the domestic abuse allegations against him, Brown’s murder scene, the police investigation, the famous white Ford Bronco chase, the trial, before ending on his eventual jail sentence in 2008. — Herb Scribner

In his final incarnation, Simpson became a dedicated commentator through Twitter video posts on the topics he knew best: football and high-profile legal cases. Often seated next to a pool or at a sports bar, Simpson would open with “Hey Twitter-world, it’s me, yours truly,” before launching into a warning to, say, Trump that he shouldn’t do interviews about his classified-documents charges. Simpson used his Twitter account to opine on other big murder trials, using his trial experience to predict that South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh would be found guilty. “Down goes Murdaugh!” a chuckling Simpson said after Murdaugh was found guilty of murdering his wife and son. “I’m just saying!” — Will Sommer