What do we do when we can’t stand to watch what will surely be razor-thin election returns? One solution: We revert, as always, to the warm bosom of cinema, where (novelty of novelties!), the good guys usually win. These politically minded films are sometimes hopeful, sometimes not, but they are all entertaining and will keep you mind off of the 2024 election.
We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
John Frankenheimer’s politically batty thriller, the only significant film to emerge out of the Korean War, concerns a Medal of Honor-winning veteran of that conflict, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey).
Shaw was brainwashed by Chinese Communist agents during the war, and his mother (Angela Lansbury, in an Oscar-nominated performance of surpassing camp) takes advantage, programming him to kill a presidential nominee to advance the career of her husband, the vice presidential candidate (James Gregory). The film portrays politics as a farce, a front for the real machinations going on behind the scenes.
The Manchurian Candidate is streaming on Tubi.
The War Room (1993)
Documentary master D.A. Pennebaker (Original Cast Album: Company) co-directed, with his wife Chris Hegedus, this defining political doc. In 1992, chief strategist James Carville and communications director George Stephanopoulos masterminded the extraordinary presidential campaign of then-Governor Bill Clinton, and Pennebaker and Hegedus were flies on the wall for much of the race.
The War Room is a tale told in mumbles, occasional bursts of rage, and, most strikingly, an enduring mood of political optimism that feels utterly alien today.
The War Room is streaming on Max.
Long Shot (2019)
Adept and underrated romantic comedy director Jonathan Levine, who started his career as an assistant director to Paul Schrader, helms this nimble political rom-com. Much of the humor is derived from the mismatch between the leads: schlubby journalist-turned-speechwriter Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) and supermodel-beautiful secretary of state and presidential candidate Charlotte Field (who else, Charlize Theron). But their chemistry is so pronounced that the joke suggested by the title feels beside the point. More interesting is the scandal that nearly derails Field’s campaign – Flarsky caught on tape masturbating to one of Field’s speeches. It’s got nothing to do with her, and yet, naturally, it’s her fault – a snapshot of the maddening standards set for female politicians.
Long Shot is streaming on Hulu.
Weiner (2016)
Those of us who were in and around New York City in the summer of 2013 remember the bizarre truth that disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner was, for a shockingly long time, the frontrunner for mayor that year. In revisiting that strange time, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s utterly superb political documentary never fails to startle.
As the second of many sexting scandals begins to destroy Weiner’s campaign, Kriegman and Steinberg are granted unprecedented access and are in the room as Weiner argues with his wife, Huma Abedin. They’re also alongside him at his lowest moments. “Why are you letting us film this?” the cameraman asks at one point. Why? Because Weiner is an exhibitionist. And that makes for a fascinating subject.
Weiner is streaming on Plex.
Game Change (2012)
How naïve we were in those days when we believed Sarah Palin was the worst it could get! Jay Roach’s 2012 HBO drama about John McCain’s (Ed Harris) selection of Palin (Julianne Moore) as running mate in 2008 is notable in its refusal to resort to caricature – indeed, as if to drive the point home, one key scene shows Moore’s Palin watching Tina Fey’s Palin on SNL.
Moore, Harris, and Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt, head of operations on the McCain campaign, form a telling triad – the former a self-serving savant, the latter two essentially honorable men utterly bewildered by the way the political winds are blowing.
Game Change is streaming on Max.
Duck Soup (1933)
The single funniest political satire ever filmed is this 1933 Marx Brothers comedy. It’s a riff on the most dangerous power of the presidency – the ability to make war. Groucho Marx plays Rufus T. Firefly, a con artist whose patron, Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont), loans $20 million to the bankrupt European nation of Fredonia in exchange for making Firefly President. (Though some film historians consider Fredonia a stand-in for the fascist dictatorships of the era, Fredonia’s national anthem, which winkingly refers to Fredonia as the “land of the brave and free” as opposed to “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” drives home that we’re in a mirror-image of America.)
Firefly, a brazenly insulting know-nothing, is ripe for manipulation at the hands of an ambassador (Louis Calhern) from neighboring Sylvania, who goads the new Fredonian president into a pointless armed conflict. Groucho, and his brothers, Chico and Harpo, attain with Duck Soup the apex of their career-long comic thesis – that we are ultimately ruled by the craven and the clueless.
Duck Soup is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Inherit the Wind (1960)
One of the defining issues of this election season has been what should and shouldn’t be taught in our schools. No film has addressed this subject as a political issue more directly than Stanley Kramer’s 1960 film Inherit the Wind. An adaptation of the 1955 play of the same name, Inherit the Wind was inspired by the so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925, in which a Tennessee high school teacher was put on trial for teaching the theory of evolution.
The trial became a cause célèbre, and though the names have been changed for the film, the real-life historical figures are essentially on offer: Spencer Tracy as defense attorney Henry Drummond (modeled after Clarence Darrow), Frederic March as assistant prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady (modeled after former Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan), and, most memorably, Gene Kelly as a poisonously cynical reporter based on H.L. Mencken, who famously covered the trial.
Inherit the Wind is streaming on Tubi.
In the Loop (2009)
The DNA of two of the most popular American TV shows of the past decade – Veep and Succession – is in this foul-mouthed comedy of errors about American and British bureaucrats preparing for the invasion of Iraq. It is itself a spinoff of the British sitcom The Thick of It.
Co-written by Veep creator Armando Iannucci and Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, among others, and directed by Iannucci, the film reflects its director’s perspective (echoed by many in Washington) that even the most momentous political decisions are ultimately a result of private backbiting and horse-trading.
In the Loop is streaming on The CW.
The American President (1995)
Aaron Sorkin’s third screenplay, a romantic comedy with Michael Douglas as the titular widowed president and Annette Bening as the environmental lobbyist who captures his heart, is most notable for being the prime mover behind Sorkin’s The West Wing. (Sorkin later said he cobbled together much of the first season of the 1999-2007 NBC TV show out of material edited out of The American President.)
But it’s also a fleet, watchable romp, ably directed by Rob Reiner (who had also done Sorkin’s debut, A Few Good Men), and featuring a showstopping closing scene in which Douglas’s President Andrew Shepard publicly excoriates his political opponent for taking shots at his new girlfriend.
The American President is streaming on the Roku Channel.
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Elia Kazan’s genuinely remarkable film of Budd Schulberg’s screenplay is a keen indictment of the power of the press. TV everyman Andy Griffith plays Lonesome Rhodes, a faux-folksy singer and television host enlisted to promote the presidential candidacy of stuffed-shirt Sen. Worthington Fuller (Marshall Neilan). Rhodes is a salesman, peddling the Fuller candidacy just as he sells the worthless caffeine pills of his sponsor, Vitajex.
In the film’s most memorable scene, Griffith puffs out his chest like a rooster, claiming he’s undergone a Vitajex-infused transformation: “Oooh-wee, I am ready. I mean, I’m in the MOOD! My personality undergoes a STARTLING change!” It’s a prescient reminder of the power of hyperbole and intensity as a persuasive tool when facts fail.
A Face in the Crowd is streaming on Tubi.