10 Best Political Movies To Watch Before The Next Election

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If you told us that there is a movie in which Warren Beatty plays a suicidal U.S. Senator who raps his way to popularity while avoiding an assassin he himself hired for insurance money, we would immediately assume that it is a piece of cringe comedy. However, while there is plenty of self-lampooning in this satire (written, directed, and starring Beatty himself), Bulworth is actually a remarkably hilarious, castigating look at what honesty in politics gets you.

Of all the political movies on this list, Bulworth is by far the most comedic, which gives it a slightly different edge than most. However, the story of a jaded senator who finds new meaning by aggressively confronting his constituents is still a fun and incisive one. Plus, a cast that includes Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, and Paul Sorvino is not to be sniffed at.

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Robert Redford has always looked like the perfect American political candidate, which is probably why he’s been in a lot of movies on the subject. In The Candidate, he portrays Bill McKay, the idealistic son of a former California governor, who is persuaded to run for office against any undefeatable opponent. The draw: he can say anything he wants, because he’s going to lose anyway.

However, his fortunes change on the long campaign trail and Redford finds himself trying to balance the need to compromise for victory and his own personal sense of right and wrong. If there’s ever a movie about the pressure to cave to special interests in politics, it’s this one.

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Good Night, and Good Luck dramatizes the real-life struggle between legendary news broadcaster Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Senator Joseph McCarthy (who appears via archival footage) in the anti-Communist Red Scare of the 1950s. George Clooney (who also stars as Murrow’s longtime producer) wrote and directed the movie, along with an incredible cast including Ray Wise, Jeff Daniels, Patricia Clarkson, and Frank Langella. 

This film is simultaneously one of the most idealistic and blunt political movies ever made, highlighting the necessary battle against fearmongering and the importance of taking a moral stand against those who would use it against society.

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Unlike many political biopic movies, Lincoln does not even attempt to cover the entire life and career of its subject, the 16th U.S. President (portrayed by three-time Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis. Instead, it covers the last few months of his life and his administration’s efforts to pass the controversial 13th Amendment (which abolished slavery in the U.S.) as the Civil War draws to a close. 

Many political movies about the Civil War (and Lincoln) seek to highlight the nobility of the cause to outlaw slavery, but Steven Spielberg’s movie is far more nuanced. Instead of a pure crusade, Lincoln portrays the process as a complex series of political compromises and deals, highlighting the realpolitik that keeps the government in motion.

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Michael Sheen and Frank Langella reprised their roles as British journalist David Frost and former U.S. President Richard Nixon in this film from the acclaimed play of the same name, and the Ron Howard-directed film loses nothing in adaptation. Fictionalizing a series of post-Watergate scandal interviews in 1977, Frost/Nixon portrays the interaction between the two as a crucial, historic admission of guilt from the former President.

Whether Nixon actually admitted his part in the Watergate cover-up in the interviews is still debated, Frost/Nixon is a fascinating take on the post-political life of one of the most significant figures of America in the 20th century.

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The Ides of March (adapted from Beau Willimon’s play Farragut North) dives deep into the seedy underbelly of politics and never comes up for air. George Clooney portrays a popular governor and potential presidential candidate, while Ryan Gosling and the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman play his campaign managers/political fixers. Jeffrey Wright, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, and Paul Giamatti round out the cast as various elements of the chaotic, vicious primary election.

Given that the original play was written by the person behind Netflix’s House of Cards (who also co-wrote the screenplay), it should be no surprise that this is one of the most cynical political movies ever.

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Steven Spielberg shows up again on the list of best political movies, this time directing and producing The Post, a dramatization of the Washington Post’s controversial publication of the Pentagon Papers. The incredibly loaded cast includes Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Bob Odenkirk, Alison Brie, and basically every actor in Hollywood you can think of.

The release of the Pentagon Papers (a classified study of 20 years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam) is still an enormously controversial issue, which Spielberg and company tackle with a delicate and fearless hand. The Post is a movie about the importance of the press in a free society, and all the responsibility that comes along with having a voice.

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Unlike many of the political movies on this list, The Manchurian Candidate is a completely fictional noir thriller, but that doesn’t make it any less reflective of real events. The movie stars Frank Sinatra as a Korean War soldier who escapes from capture along with his superior officer (Laurence Harvey). However, Sinatra’s haunting nightmares about their experience as POWs lead him into a dark conspiracy that plans to destroy the United States government itself.

The Manchurian Candidate has become a cultural touchstone for ideas of brainwashing and political assassination (and was remade starring Denzel Washington in 2004), making it one of the more terrifying films ever made about the ruthlessness of politics.

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JFK is unquestionably one of the most influential political movies ever made, if only for its popularization of conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Kevin Costner stars as real-life New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who finds himself pulling a never-ending thread into the vast conspiracy about the death of the president in Dallas, delving into a shadowy world of organized crime and political backstabbing.

JFK features an incomparable cast including Donald Sutherland, Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, and John Candy, and landed in the American public imagination as few political movies ever have before or since. If you’ve ever wondered whether we know all the facts about the JFK assassination, it’s probably due to this Oliver Stone movie.

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All the President’s Men stars Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as real-life Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two people who arguably brought down a sitting U.S. President in the Watergate scandal. The Alan J. Pakula-directed film covers their investigation into the scandal, the danger surrounding them, and the ultimate cultural fallout of their work in amazing, tense detail like no other movie could.

This is the defining political movie in the genre, the one that all others must be compared to in terms of its depth of emotion, unsparing look at the U.S. government, and the ultimate need for the truth.