page_title: Federal Bureau of Investigation
section_title: Media portrayal
hierarchical_section_title: Federal Bureau of Investigation / Media portrayal
caption_attribution_description: Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny speaking at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con International, for "The X-Files" 20th Anniversary panel, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere.
context_page_description: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counter-terrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes.
  Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and the Russian FSB. Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency, which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad, the FBI is primarily a domestic agency, maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throughout the United States, and more than 400 resident agencies in smaller cities and areas across the nation. At an FBI field office, a senior-level FBI officer concurrently serves as the representative of the Director of National Intelligence.
context_section_description: The FBI has been frequently depicted in popular media since the 1930s. The bureau has participated to varying degrees, which has ranged from direct involvement in the creative process of film or TV series development to providing consultation on operations and closed cases. A few of the notable portrayals of the FBI on television are the series The X-Files, which started in 1993 and concluded its eleventh season in early 2018, and concerned investigations into paranormal phenomena by five fictional Special Agents, and the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) agency in the TV drama 24, which is patterned after the FBI Counterterrorism Division. The 1991 movie Point Break depicts an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated a gang of bank robbers. The 1997 movie Donnie Brasco is based on the true story of undercover FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone infiltrating the Mafia. The 2015 TV series Quantico, titled after the location of the Bureau's training facility, deals with Probationary and Special Agents, not all of whom, within the show's format, maybe fully reliable or even trustworthy.
caption: The popular TV series The X-Files depicts the fictional FBI Special Agents Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) who investigate paranormal phenomena.
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