5. “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962)
What better way to tap into Cold War anxiety than with a political thriller about communists brainwashing American soldiers? John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film follows Frank Sinatra as Major Bennett Marco, a man plagued by constant nightmares involving men of his platoon being killed by their Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey). After pursuing an investigation, it’s revealed that the troops were brainwashed by communist forces, with Shaw poised to follow any orders so long as he is shown a Queen of Diamonds playing card . The forever-old Angela Lansbury plays his mother (despite being only three years older than Harvey), a secret commie who hopes to execute a plan allowing her to influence the U.S. President with her ideology. The 2004 update with Denzel Washington wasn’t badly received, but the original stands head and shoulders above, thanks to its weirder passages: Marco and love interest Eugenie (Janet Leigh) have such an odd conversation about states, railroad lines and old Chinese men that many concocted a “brainwashing theory” over the scene itself. There’s also the nightmare sequence, in which the soldiers are drugged to think that a presentation by Communists showing off new assassin Shaw is actually an informational meeting about hydrangeas attended only by older housewives. The reality and dream images are cut together disturbingly, going back and forth in a dissonant, maniacal fashion. It’s a pretty ingenious, expertly handled scene, and you can’t really remake that.
4. “Citizen Kane” (1941)
It’s Orson Welles’ magnum opus, still frequently called the greatest movie ever made over 75 years on from its release. But if “Citizen Kane” isn’t strictly about a politician or even about politics, it still says so much about power and money in America that’s utterly vital today, so we felt it had to be included (its placement here should be considered in it having been docked a few points for not being as entirely devoted to the subject as some of these other films). Using techniques and innovations that helped to change film forever (despite a mixed reception at the time), Welles tells the story of Charles Foster Kane (who he also plays), who went from impoverished childhood to wealth, becoming a newspaper magnate in his 20s, marrying the President’s niece and running for Governor of New York, only to come a cropper when his affair is discovered. So many films are undone by trying to tell the entire sweep of a life, but Welles finds the perfect structure here, taking a story with epic scope and stripping it down to a detailed character study of a man corrupted by wealth and power, seeking to bend the world to his will but ultimately finds it resistant —he’s a little boy who can’t find happiness despite having everything. If it’s not a film for the Trump era, we don’t know what is.
3. “Dr. Strangelove”/“Fail-Safe” (1964)
We were on the fence whether to include these two similarly premised but very differently executed examinations of potential nuclear devastation from masters Stanley Kubrick and Sidney Lumet. Both films feature presidents as main characters and deal with global brinksmanship and international relations, but don’t quite click with the other films on this list. Nevertheless, both are amazing and it’s always good to talk about them —not being in the top slot is more because they’re not quite as domestic-politics focused as some of the others. Lumet’s film is a nightmarishly claustrophobic thriller about the attempt to recall an accidentally-ordered nuclear bomber that’s been sent to attack Moscow, and does a beautiful job of capturing a desperate moral quandary that ends with a devastating gut-punch of a conclusion. Meanwhile, ‘Strangelove” takes the exact same set-up, but turns it into breathlessly funny gallow-humor satire, with Peter Sellers in three equally terrific roles. ‘Strangelove’ in particular makes a good claim to being one of the greatest movies ever made: Kubrick displays a facility for comedy that his other work doesn’t always show amidst the stunning set designs. Both are still the high watermark for stories of mutually assured destruction and nuclear disaster.
2. “All The President’s Men” (1976)
Most of the films on this list follow politicians, but you don’t have to do so to make a great movie about politicians —“All The President’s Men” is about journalists, and it’s still one of the very best political movies ever made. Alan J. Pakula’s film digs into the then-very-recent story of Watergate, the greatest political scandal in U.S. history, and how Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) uncovered a burglary endorsed by the executive branch of the U.S. government. William Goldman’s clear-headed, witty screenplay expertly condenses a dizzying amount of information and a convoluted case into something eminently watchable, and Pakula (aided no end by Gordon Willis’ photography, which always finds something lurking in the shadows) directs the hell out of the film, keeping the tension high without ever losing sight of the characters. It’s a story stranger than fiction, but the immaculate execution at every level makes it feel almost like a documentary, albeit one more artfully staged than real life ever could be. Nearly forty years on, and with the outcome in the history books, it remains as utterly gripping as ever.
1. “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” (1939)
James Stewart’s filibuster at the end of “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” is one of the finest scenes of his career and one of the most memorable moments in classic American cinema. And while it’s now considered by some to be somewhat quaint and naively idealistic,, it’s easy to forget that at the time politicians branded the film as anti-American and pro-Communist. Revisiting the movie now, it’s surprising just how affecting it still is. Marking the second collaboration between Stewart and Frank Capra, following their charming “You Can’t Take It With You,” the story follows wide-eyed Jefferson Smith, a Boy Rangers leader who is suddenly ushered into the U.S. Senate when his state representative dies. Crooked political boss Jim Taylor thinks the green Smith will be easily manipulated when he finds himself in over his head, but is surprised when he fights back when some proposed legislation will build a dam on the site of a campground. Smith is backed up against a wall by the seasoned political power players and boxed in by a frame-up that his rivals hope will bounce him out of office, and so the film hinges on that last, great speech by Smith, and with Capra and Stewart working their magic, it’s impossible to resist. More than seven decades since the film was first released and in this era of deeply partisan and cynical government, you’ll wish there was someone as passionate and principled as Jefferson Smith stomping the halls of Washington. “Will the Senator yield?” Hell, no.
Honorable Mentions:
There’s plenty more that could have made the list, even beyond films that weren’t quite political enough (we considered including Elia Kazan’s “Face In The Crowd,” for one, but it felt like more of a media movie than a political one). Also on the shortlist was the Aaron Sorkin-penned “West Wing” warm-up “The American President,” winning Kevin Kline comedy “Dave,” Mike Nichols’ “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Oliver Stone’s underrated “Nixon,” Ron Howard’s enjoyable “Frost/Nixon,” Rod Lurie’s “The Contender,” Eddie Murphy vehicle “The Distinguished Gentleman,” bonkers New Deal-era authoritarian fantasy “Gabriel Over The White House,” Jay Roach’s double-bill of HBO election movies “Recount” and “Game Change,” Tracy/Hepburn comedy “State Of The Union” and about a million great documentaries. Any others worth a mention? Let us know in the comments.
– Oliver Lyttelton, Erik McClanahan, Rodrigo Perez, Sam Price, Kevin Jagernauth, Sam Chater, Matthew Newlin, Christopher Bell