A documentary film titled “Melania,” dedicated to US First Lady Melania Trump, is being released internationally. At the center of the film are roughly 20 days of her life in January 2025, during the period leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration and the family’s return to the White House after a four-year absence. The film is built on exclusive footage of closed-door meetings, working discussions around the inauguration ceremony, and scenes of Melania Trump interacting with her own team and with the family of the president-elect.
The story surrounding the project became a subject of discussion well before the film’s release. In December 2024, after Donald Trump’s election victory but before his inauguration, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrived at the Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. At that point, relations between the two remained openly adversarial: Trump had publicly accused Bezos of negative coverage through his newspaper, The Washington Post, while Bezos claimed that the Trump administration had blocked his companies’ access to government contracts for political reasons.
Following the December meeting, the sides appear to have reached a rapprochement. Shortly thereafter, Amazon announced its intention to produce and fully finance a film about Melania Trump. The project was allocated $40 million—an amount highly unusual for documentary filmmaking and nearly three times higher than the offers from other studios, which reportedly capped out at around $14 million. A significant portion of the budget was earmarked for Melania Trump herself, who served not only as the film’s central figure but also as one of its producers.
US media outlets have generally avoided explicit language describing the project as a bribe to Donald Trump on Bezos’s part. Still, hints of such an interpretation appear in virtually every piece devoted to the film.
Melania and Donald Trump at the premiere of the film “Melania” at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Further controversy was sparked by the choice of director. “Melania” was directed by Brett Ratner, previously known for the Rush Hour franchise starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, as well as the films Red Dragon and X-Men: The Last Stand. In 2017, amid the MeToo movement, several actresses accused Ratner of harassment, effectively bringing his Hollywood career to a halt.
Sources at The New York Times within Amazon say the company’s leadership did not allow employees to opt out of participation in the project. According to Rolling Stone, roughly two-thirds of the film crew ultimately asked not to have their names listed in the credits.
In addition to the production budget, Amazon spent an additional $35 million on promoting the film. The marketing campaign includes billboard placements in Times Square in New York—among the most expensive advertising locations in the world—as well as trailer screenings during broadcasts of National Football League playoff games.
Early reviews from critics who saw “Melania” ahead of its official release largely converge on one point: the film is described either as outright dull or, in more restrained language, as an excessively expensive and essentially hollow PR exercise. Reviewers suggest the picture is likely to appeal only to loyal supporters of Donald Trump and his family. Analysts expect box-office takings over the opening weekend to reach around $2 million, with the most favorable scenario pushing the figure toward $5 million. Other forecasts are far more pessimistic, pointing to a result closer to $1 million.
In the United Kingdom, the film opened simultaneously in more than one hundred Vue cinemas, yet audience interest proved minimal. In London, some screenings sold just one or two tickets. Vue itself confirmed that the release of “Melania” prompted a negative reaction from the public and became a target of criticism.
In South Africa, the situation was even more stark: local distributor Filmfinity pulled the film from release one day before its scheduled premiere. The company said the decision was taken in light of “recent events” and the “current situation,” without specifying what exactly was meant. By all appearances, this refers to heightened political tensions between South Africa and the United States: Donald Trump has accused South African authorities of a “genocide of whites.”
Documentary films, in general, rarely count on significant box-office returns in cinemas. Even successful projects typically find their audience not in theatrical release but on television or streaming platforms. “Melania” will also be available on Amazon Prime, though the service—like other streamers—does not disclose viewing figures for individual films.