10. “Lincoln” (2012)
If the first act of Steven Spielberg’s career saw him as the great escapist, and the second brought out his more sentimental, family-man side, the third finally unleashed the political side. From about 2004, virtually every one of his films has felt driven by a need to comment on the world we live in, from the Capra-ish refugee tale of “The Terminal” to last year’s “Bridge Of Spies,” a defense of the 6th Amendment. But “Lincoln” is the only one of his films to date that really grapples with how the sausage of politics gets made. Tony Kushner’s excellent screenplay skips the traditional biopic formula you might expect for this subject to focus on the titular president (Daniel Day-Lewis, who won his third Oscar for the role), with the Civil War on the verge of ending and his attempt to pass the Thirteenth Amendment in Congress. The decision to focus the film on law-making proves to be inspired, with Lincoln’s manipulation and horse-trading by a trio of unscrupulous lobbyists (James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson) making it feel unexpectedly entertaining. And like Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” (see below), it’s a film about a legendary politician that shows who he was by depicting how he was.
9. “The War Room” (1993)
Recently parodied sublimely by Bill Hader and Fred Armisen on their great “Documentary Now!” series, “The War Room” remains a seminal nonfiction look at American politics, and one that, with a Clinton on the campaign trail again, feels highly relevant again. Directed by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker, it provides remarkable access into the 1992 presidential election campaign, and specifically Bill Clinton’s run. The film made stars in particular of James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, the Clinton campaign’s Lead Strategist and Communications Director, and provided a rare glimpse of the inner workings of a presidential campaign, as well as fly-on-the-wall look at an extraordinary narrative —Clinton was far from the favorite when Hegedus and Pennebaker began filming. But it’s less a glimpse of history and more a fascinating look at process and people, providing an early peek as to how politics was set to change as the Democratic Party bounced back from years in the wilderness with a fire in their belly. It’s influenced similar documentaries like Showtime’s current “The Circus” series, but also fiction, including “The West Wing” to “The Ides Of March.”
8. “The Great McGinty” (1940)
With his directorial debut, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, Preston Sturges kicked off his career with a bang (legend has it that he sold the idea for ‘McGinty’ to Paramount under the condition that he direct it). A diverting and ironic little political satire by way of cautionary tale, the picture stars Brian Donlevy as the titular “hero”— a bum on the breadline with a thuggish streak. When he hears that a group of corrupt politicos are paying $2 per vote for a figurehead patsy mayor, he votes a whopping 37 times and catches their attention. Tickled by his clueless, brutish approach as he mouths off to them and everyone around him, the boss (Akim Tamiroff) hires him to collect past-due protection money. McGinty passes every test with flying colors and eventually becomes his political protegé, graduating to alderman, mayor and eventually governor —all the while being the puppet on the end of the mob’s strings. But when he falls in love with his secretary/fake wife Catherine (a charming Muriel Angelus) —the sham wedding only occurs so he can get the female vote when he is running for mayor— things begin to change. She and her children awaken a caring, compassionate side in McGinty and they press him to quit being the stooge for his crooked bosses. Refusing to bend to their wishes and erect expensive monuments that line their pockets, McGinty is headed for a fall from grace. Whipsmart, engaging and funny, “The Great McGinty” is an entertaining parable and a sign of only greater things to come from Sturges.
7. “Selma” (2014)
We’re completely fatigued with biopics these days, but “Selma” is a recent exception, in part because of the very specific angle it takes. Ava DuVernay’s masterful film isn’t about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as an icon or a martyr or even a man (though you get a good grasp of the latter). It’s about King as a politician. Paul Webb’s screenplay is set over a relatively tight amount of time in 1964, as Dr. King (David Oyelowo in a star-making performance) looks to put pressure on President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) to eliminate restrictions on black voters by organizing a huge march in Selma, Alabama. The film has a fine, sprawling cast (including Carmen Ejogo, Andre Holland, Tessa Thompson, Lorrainne Toussaint, Oprah Winfrey, Jeremy Strong and Wendell Pierce), but MLK’s always at the center, showing how change comes through protest, but also how backroom pressure and the battles played out in public (appropriately, given that DuVernay worked in public relations, it’s a movie in part about politics as PR and PR as politics). It could have been dry and wonkish, but DuVernay makes the film feel visceral, powerful and deeply human, and it confirmed after her promising indies that a major talent had arrived.
6. “Election” (1999)
1999 was an amazing year for film, and one of the reasons for that was that “Election,” a film that seemingly came out of nowhere and lodged in the public consciousness, was released that year. This darkly comic film from Alexander Payne (it’s still his best) tells the allegorical story of a simple high school election for senior class president. Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) is that obnoxious over-achiever that we all knew in high school: she’s involved in way too many clubs and activities, she has perfect grades and organizes an insanely intense campaign even though she’s running unopposed. It’s this last part that really irks one of her teachers, Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick), which leads him to encourage (read: force) naïve and brainless jock Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) into running against Tracy. Payne’s film is clearly a microcosm of bigger political campaigns and how the candidates are rarely the ones pulling the strings, and like his previous film “Citizen Ruth,” “Election” keeps the audience a little off-balance and wondering “Should I be laughing at this?” The answer is yes. The film is almost perfect in every way. The performances, especially Broderick and Witherspoon, are dead-on and the screenplay, based on the novel by Tom Perrotta (“Little Children” and “The Leftovers”), is filled with brilliant dialogue and multiple voiceovers that clash intriguingly.