What better time to explore the best Hollywood narrative representations of American politics from the past and present than as the Democratic National Convention gets began on Monday and election season gets under way?
Talking with my enterprising editor pushed me to consider topics other than just how the government operates, such as those that will likely come up a lot as November election day approaches and the various ways that movies might represent the yearning for change.
Whether the topic is abortion, race, marriage equality, immigration, or spying, some of the options below address issues that are fundamentally political without overtly acknowledging politics in the traditional sense.
Along those lines, I was disappointed that John Ford’s classic adaptation of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which tells the story of a family that loses their Oklahoma farmland and migrates to California during the Great Depression, did not receive a slot. It is a masterful representation of poverty, wealth inequality, and the labor union movement on screen. That was a sad omission as well because I loved the Henry Fonda movie Young Mr. Lincoln, another one of Ford’s films depicting the making of a future political leader.
Instead of duplicating the countless other lists of significant political films, we chose to omit some of the classics, such as A Face in the Crowd, All the King’s Men, and The Manchurian Candidate, which has stood the test of time primarily because of Angela Lansbury’s fierce portrayal of a cunning mother/manipulator.
Two other Robert Redford films beat out The Candidate, another Spike Lee film beat out Do the Right Thing, and Sidney Lumet’s suspenseful film Failure Safe, which explored the terrifying prospect of an unapproved nuclear attack on Russia, missed the cut but was followed by a satirical version of the same story that was released in 1964.
I regret not finding room for George Clooney’s powerful Good Night, and Good Luck, which tells the story of Edward R. Murrow, the journalist, helping to bring down Joseph McCarthy, among other more current movies. Winter’s Bone by Debra Granik, a scathing portrayal of drug addiction in impoverished rural communities, Oliver Stone’s in-depth investigative epic JFK, and two films by Steven Spielberg—the Post, which followed the D.C. broadsheet’s efforts to publish the Pentagon Papers, and Lincoln, a finely detailed portrait—also just missed inclusion. Similarly, Michael Mann’s thrilling business thriller The Insider, which is based on a whistleblower from the tobacco industry.
Even while their impact has lessened over time, a number of politically charged films that were once thought to be masterpieces—such as Warren Beatty’s Bulworth, Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog, and Hal Ashby’s Being There—remain captivating.
To leave out Armando Iannucci’s scabrous pre-Veep satire of British-American political relations, In the Loop, is a hyper-articulate fake documentary that features some of the most gorgeously vivid profanities ever pronounced on screen. It kills me. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, two powerful films directed by Kathryn Bigelow that address American interventionism in a more serious manner, also almost missed the cut.
However, remember that there are only 20 films, so not every worthy submission will be included.
- ‘Night Moves’ (2013) Image Credit: Cinedigm/Courtesy Everett Collection This suspenseful thriller about environmental activists carrying out a plan to blow up a hydroelectric dam in Oregon is the most dialogue- and plot-driven of minimalist poet Kelly Reichardt’s works. It draws inspiration from the political paranoia trend of the 1970s. It is a clear-eyed assessment of the need for action balanced against the costs of a politicized reaction, unlike other climate-crisis movies. Because of its intricate ideological dialectic, it bears similarities to How to Blow Up a Pipeline from the previous year.The suspenseful scene featuring Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, and Peter Sarsgaard as eco-warriors carrying out a mission at night creates a Hitchcockian atmosphere until the explosion is only perceived as distant noise, leading to a reflected distance. Reichardt’s normal admiration for the Pacific Northwest’s landscapes elegantly expresses everything at risk.
- ‘City of Hope’ (1991)
Image Credit: Samuel Goldwyn Company/Courtesy Everett Collection The challenge of choosing between two personal favorites is posed by John Sayles, one of America’s most important political filmmakers. His expansive 1996 neo-Western Lone Star, which tells the story of an investigation into a history of racial violence in a Texas border town, is a film I could have happily watched. Perhaps more in need of rediscovery is this similarly epic-canvas drama about a fictional community in New Jersey where corruption, greed, moral rot, and misery are the only things left standing after idealism has died. The filmmaker follows about 36 important interwoven characters—among them fat cats and marginalized minorities, a dubious mayor,—with flexible rhythms, unwavering control, and clarity. property developers, a drug dealer, an unstable police officer, his battered ex-wife, and a Black reformist councilman who runs into obstacles in his attempts to serve his community. Sayles decides to play a shady auto shop owner who also organizes small-time crimes as a side gig. It is a detailed portrayal of a pulsating, angry urban America where political and financial power continually triumphs over a moral existence. - ‘The Kids Are All Right’ (2010)
Image Credit: Suzanne Tenner/Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection Five years prior to marriage equality becoming a federal law, while the issue was still hotly debated and political opposition was still strong in many states, Lisa Cholodenko took a modest but bold step. By casting Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as lesbian spouses coping with situations eminently relatable for any heterosexual couple, including their own frequently tetchy relationship and their adjustment to their teenage children’s growing independence, played with aching realness by Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson, she normalized same-sex marriage and parenthood.Warm Southern California sunshine bathes this amusing, lustful film, which finds friction in the siblings’ desire to see their sperm-donor father—a comic Mark Ruffalo who plays a farm-to-table neo-bohemian who may be a little too taken with his own enormous charms. In this exquisite portrayal of parental mistakes, marital difficulties, and familial love and the associated embarrassments, Cholodenko takes the politics of representation very personally. Among many precious moments is Moore’s portrayal of Jules trying to explain to her son why his moms watch homosexual male porn to get turned on. - ‘Primary Colors’ (1998)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Mike Nichols was one of the few directors who could consistently bring out the best in his performers. One of the main delights of this very amusing version of the roman à clef about Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is the delicious work of an outstanding ensemble.That and an Elaine May script chock-full of biting humor and perceptive observations. While Emma Thompson shows sympathy for her husband, a brutal pragmatist whose dignity is eroded by the constant revelation of her husband’s infidelity, John Travolta captures the folksy genuineness of a candidate who is both deeply flawed and principled. Through the increasingly disillusioned eyes of Adrian Lester’s Henry, the grandson of a civil rights hero who is eager to be a part of history in the making, the film explores the incompatibility of politics and idealism.But the more devastating illustration of that point is Libby, an old friend hired by the campaign to block smear tactics. Kathy Bates gives a shattering performance as a tough woman who comes in with guns blazing and exits with a crushing emptiness in her belly where the fire once was. - ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ (1939)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The most juicy political films are usually ones that show abuses of power, but every list should have at least one entry from before the generalized cynicism of the day. Not that there is not any questionable morality in this Frank Capra comedy—D.C. is replete with bribery and corruption, press freedom is curtailed, the truth is twisted, and a Senate powerbroker is exposed as being in the pocket of a wealthy billionaire. (Unsurprisingly, the movie was met with controversy upon its release, denounced in Washington as anti-American.) What lingers most is the idealism of James Stewart’s title character, a rube from an unnamed Western state who lands an unlikely Senate seat. Watching him gaze in awe at the Lincoln Memorial is an indelible image of untarnished patriotism, and even when he’s sucked under by a swamp that drowns whistleblowers, Mr. Smith never gives up the fight. - ‘Three Days of the Condor’ (1975)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection While acknowledging the blinding force of movie-star chemistry in a collection of great political films may seem frivolous, Sydney Pollack’s pacy thriller, starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, more than makes up for any plot twists. A renowned scene in the canon of “trust no one” movies concerning the surreptitious actions of U.S. intelligence organizations is the shocking scene where a group of hitmen, headed by Max von Sydow with a sinister demeanor, break into a covert CIA headquarters in New York and kill every employee. Joe Turner, Redford’s laid-back analyst, credits his survival to having gone to get lunch at the time. However, when he calls headquarters to request that he be brought in securely,he gradually learns that a report he filed put a target on his office and it’s the CIA that wants him dead. Desperate to gain time, Joe kidnaps Dunaway’s random stranger Kathy, holing up in her Brooklyn apartment. Faster than you can say “Stockholm syndrome,” a sexually charged romance develops, which stretches credibility but adds to the undimmed appeal of this relentlessly involving A-grade B movie. - ‘Selma’ (2014)
Image Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett CollectionBecause it took Hollywood nearly fifty years to address the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., the underrepresentation of Ava DuVernay’s passionate historical drama at the Oscars is all the more shocking. David Oyelowo portrays the revered civil rights leader with a stirring sense of purpose and a humble humanity in a performance that is both towering and restrained. Oyelowo constantly asks himself if his efforts to stop the institutional violence against Black Americans are the best course of action. The 1965 marches from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights are both inspirational and horrific, as the harsh attacks by Alabama law police and white citizens attempt to denigrate the nonviolent stance taken by King and his allies.The film illustrates how far the nation is from actual equality even though the protests finally succeed and President Lyndon B. Johnson (the late great Tom Wilkinson) pushes for the swift passage of a law to remove voting restrictions. - ‘Maria Full of Grace’ (2004)
Image Credit: Fine Line/Courtesy Everett Collection In the Trump era, the demonization of illegal immigration across the southern border has taken center stage in the GOP narrative, with rally goers demanding mass deportations due to a Norman Rockwell fantasy of a white America that did not exist during their lifetimes or the lifetimes of many generations before them. Originally, I was going to put Gregory Nava’s 1983 independent film El Norte on this list, but the epic about two Guatemalan siblings who must escape probable death at the hands of a government militia is still notable since it was the first significant motion picture to have widespread distribution in the United States. Viewers interact with the experience of immigrants from Central America. Now, Joshua Marston’s uncompromising drama about a 17-year-old rural Colombian lady (Catalina Sandino Moreno) who is forced to come to the United States as a drug mule has a lot more impact. Asking us to engage in a heroin courier is a bold choice, but the terrifying experience that solidifies the main character’s decision to stay away from home humanizes and, in some ways, even cleanses her. The movie is a melancholic meditation on good individuals getting drawn in to work in a global economy where the underprivileged are just cogs in the machine. - ‘The Parallax View’ (1974)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection This famous novel by Alan J. Pakula is another example of a crackling 1970s paranoia thriller that tapped into a general sense of dread and disillusionment stoked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Kennedy. Warren Beatty plays a fantastic reporter named Joe Frady, who is looking into the death of a well-known senator and potential presidential candidate at the Seattle Space Needle three years prior. The unexplained deaths of every eyewitness, including Paula Prentiss’s character, Joe’s colleague journalist, catch his attention. His investigation reveals the existence of the Parallax Corporation, a clandestine organization that hires “security” staff members with assassination training. In a last act that leads to a startling revelation, Joe finds himself at a rally for a different prospective presidential contender after breaking into the organization. - ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ (2020)
Image Credit: Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection Women’s reproductive freedom has been the most divisive issue in American politics since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022. Conservative voices have called for the criminalization of abortion, the restriction of abortion-related medications, and even the outlawing of contraception.The captivating drama by Eliza Hittman is particularly beautiful because it tackles the contentious topic from a humanistic perspective, telling the inspiring tale of female fortitude, friendship, and unity. A dreamlike, darkly intimate experience, the quasi-road movie stars Talia Ryder and Sidney Flanigan as adroitly unaffected adolescent cousins who travel from rural Pennsylvania to New York City to end an unwanted pregnancy. In a just world, anyone who questions a woman’s freedom to choose would be silenced by the wellspring of despair, guilt, remorse, and humiliation Flanigan’s heroine feels when she answers the multiple-choice inquiry that gives the movie its title to a medical expert. - ‘Get Out’ (2017)
Image Credit: Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Anyone who thinks race is no longer a factor in American politics has not been paying attention, especially since the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s presidency exposed the fallacy of the idea that America is no longer racially divided, not to mention the rise in the strength of the white supremacist movement in the nation and protest movements like Black Lives Matter.There are many excellent films that tackle those cracks in thought-provoking ways, but Jordan Peele’s incredibly self-assured first stands out for its sheer inventiveness and growing level of horror. With brilliant casting that stars Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener as hospitable, neoliberal WASP parents with a sinister agenda, Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams elevate this portrayal of elite entitlement to a cutting edge, as Black bodies are exploited as a cure for white decay. Peele deftly strikes a balance between incisive social satire, gory horror, and black humor. - ‘Election’ (1999)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Reese Witherspoon’s hallmark role, along with Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, is still Tracy Flick, the vivacious monster with laser-focused ambition who begins an aggressive campaign for student body president. As Tracy manipulates him to try and cut her down to size, Matthew Broderick is excellent in his role as the social studies teacher, and Chris Klein and the late Jessica Campbell are terrific as the chalk-and-cheese siblings Paul and Tammy Metzler. Director Alexander Payne and screenwriter Jim Taylor skillfully explored the satire’s underhanded tactics and spoiler candidates for larger-scale political connections, based on an adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s then-unpublished novel. - ‘Dick’ (1999)
Image Credit: Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Of course, there is Frost/Nixon, Nixon, All the President’s Men, and even Forrest Gump. Another notable work of speculative fiction is Robert Altman’s Secret Honor, a virtuoso monologue featuring Philip Baker Hall as the soon-to-be-disgraced president that has been all but forgotten. However, nothing compares to Andrew Fleming’s delirious satire, which suggests that two stylish teens carrying hash cookies, rather than supersleuth reporters, were responsible for uncovering the Watergate crisis. The cheekily titled comedy features a deep bench supporting cast that includes Will Ferrell and Kids in the Hall’s Bruce McCulloch as a bumbling Woodward and Bernstein, the latter of whom is constantly flicking a hilarious Dustin Hoffman wig; Dan Hedaya as the movie’s director; and Michelle Williams as a crucial stepping stone from Dawson’s Creek to big-screen work. - ‘Malcolm X’ (1992)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection This expansive portrayal of the revolutionary Black human rights hero is an operatic epic that delves into the psychologically intricate division between his public and private life. Spike Lee is too creative a director to make a traditional biography. Denzel Washington, in the lead role, lends unquestionable authority to what is essentially a tale of iron-willed self-reinvention. Malcolm overcomes grief, prejudice, crime, and incarceration to become a divisive political figure who vehemently questions the ability of laws to address racial injustice. One of the many sharp supporting performances that add depth to an insightful drama that allows us to experience both the man and the myth is Angela Bassett as Malcolm’s devoted wife, Betty Shabazz. - ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!” Former U.S. President Merkin Muffley, one of Peter Sellers’ three personas in the legendary Cold War comedy directed by Stanley Kubrick that humorously spins our concerns about the wrong guy gaining access to the nuclear codes. The problem arises from the death of Air Force Brig. Gen. Jack D.With a cigar clenched between his teeth, Sterling Hayden portrays Ripper, a renegade who commands a fleet of B-52s armed with hydrogen bombs to attack targets in Russia. (His faulty hypothesis holds that the fluoridation of America’s water supply is the result of a conspiracy by the communists to contaminate “our precious body fluids.”) It is a ridiculous satire of competing superpowers that is done just straight enough to keep things exciting. Sellers also plays the eponymous character, a German weapons developer whose Nazi background keeps awkwardly emerging in the Sieg heil! salute spasms of his paralyzed arm; and Lionel Mandrake, Ripper’s British executive officer, horrified to be imprisoned with a nutjob. In the meantime, Slim Pickens, who plays Texan Major T.J. “King” Kong, has the most famous scene in the film when he rides an H-bomb in the air like a - ‘Fruitvale Station’ (2013)
Image Credit: The Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown. These are only a few of the names of African Americans who have been murdered by law enforcement in the years following the shooting death of Oscar Grant III, 22, on New Year’s Eve 2008 at a Bay Area transit stop. Similar to the Floyd case, protests were triggered by cellphone footage captured by bystanders; yet, the events have persisted and police reforms are still progressing slowly. The careers of both director Ryan Coogler and actor Michael B. Jordan were catapulted into stardom by this potent, profoundly disturbing film. Oscar is not a saint despite the sympathetic drama; he has served time in jail, failed to maintain employment, and cheated on his child’s mother. However, it fulfills what demonstrators have aimed to accomplish for victims of - ‘Milk’ (2008)
Image Credit: Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection Harvey Milk was the first openly homosexual American man elected to public office and a leading advocate for LGBTQ rights. Gus Van Sant’s deeply poignant portrayal of Milk’s life and tragic assassination combines documentary-style archival elements with delicate moments of poetry. Played with as much fun as a combative spirit by Sean Penn, Milk shows herself to be a realistic optimist who confronts the kind of bigotry and intolerance that still inspires the evangelical far right today, all while hiding behind the self-righteous shield of morality, family, and religion. Not only is it a moving ode to the strength of grassroots action, but it is also a film with incredible life, compassion, and burning indignation. Although Milk helped create a gay community in San Francisco’s Castro District, he brought individuals together outside of that group by taking - ‘Blow Out’ (1981)
Image Credit: Filmways /Courtesy Everett Collection Debate whether or not this qualifies as a dirty politics movie. Naturally, that was not Brian De Palma’s main goal, but any neo-noir that opens with a presidential candidate being assassinated, makes references to the Zapruder film and the Chappaquidick incident, and ends with a deadly cover-up that is both terrifying and emotionally devastating has to be on this list. Influenced by both The Conversation and Antonioni’s Blow-Up, it is a visually striking and darkly funny homage to filmmaking skill, as well as a chilling masterwork that showcases the director’s talents to their fullest. John Lithgow, Nancy Allen, and John Travolta all give outstanding performances. Even after forty years and innumerable viewings, the “Liberty Day” fireworks scene still makes me cry. - ‘All the President’s Men’ (1976)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection This entire compilation could easily be expanded upon with political thrillers from the 1960s and 1970s, especially those by John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet, and Alan J. Pakula. This is the definitive account of how two hardworking Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, respectively), discovered the crimes that ultimately forced Nixon out of office. The trilogy of films about paranoia, surveillance, and conspiracies that started with Klute and The Parallax View (which is also included here) culminated in this film. This one truly stands the test of time; it is tense, intense, and incredibly comprehensive, a study not just of high-level government wrongdoings but also of journalistic operations prior to the excruciating demise of print media. - ‘The Conversation’ (1974)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Francis Ford Coppola’s big-canvas epics such as Apocalypse Now and the Godfather trilogy are largely responsible for his legendary stature. However, this taut, eerie thriller, which stars a rarely better Gene Hackman as a recluse technologist who provides his spying skills to government and private contractors, is one of the director’s best-known films and stands out in his body of work. One of the best movies to emerge from the growing distrust of the establishment brought about by the Vietnam War and Watergate, it skillfully depicts a man’s crisis of conscience as cracks appear in his complacent belief that he only provides the tapes and what happens after is none of his business. The film builds suspense gradually but expertly. The immaculate new 4K restoration from Rialto Pictures keeps the rough appearance and feel of
