# Best or Accurate Political Movies ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 14, 2019, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516 "2019-04-14T00:01:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/21 "2019-04-16T16:22:24Z")
The Walking Dead ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/22 "2019-04-16T17:08:30Z")
[It takes everybody else dying before a black guy can become President.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_(1972_film)) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/23 "2019-04-16T19:23:27Z")
_The American President_ is mostly a romantic comedy, but is pretty accurate, from all I’ve read, in showing the day-to-day routine in the White House. It also serves as a movie-length semi-prequel to _The West Wing_. _In the Line of Fire_ is mostly a crime thriller about a Secret Service agent squaring off against a would-be presidential assassin, but it also captures the ups and downs of a hotly-contested reelection campaign. _Seven Days in May_ is a somewhat farfetched but very good thriller about a possible military coup in the U.S. > [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > I’m pretty certain, “All the President’s Men” should win this running away. _Great_ movie. I saw it again recently, and it still holds up very well. > [@Bullitt](#): > > _Dave_ (1993] — Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella, Ving Rhames, Charles Grodin, and Ben Kingsley. > > ETA a comedy, quite enjoyable. Yes! Love that movie. Langella really should’ve gotten the Oscar for his role as the hardass, tightly-wound White House chief of staff. > [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > [It takes everybody else dying before a black guy can become President.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_(1972_film)) Well, in fairness, the elderly Speaker of the House refuses to serve because he’s just too damn old. The book is better, BTW, although very much grounded in the Sixties. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/24 "2019-04-18T00:06:33Z")
Battle of Algiers Peterloo The Young Karl Marx All the Way (about LBJ; Bryan Cranston is great) Land and Freedom Matewan ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/25 "2019-04-18T01:05:32Z")
**Bob Roberts** also features early appearances of Jack Black and the guy that plays Gus Fring on **Breaking Bad**. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/26 "2019-04-18T08:49:03Z")
I’ve been beaten to _Dave_ but how about _Charlie Wilson’s War_? ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/27 "2019-04-18T16:28:36Z")
On **Dropo**'s list is _[Z](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(1969_film))_. It’s about the a political assassination and its after effects in Greece that later lead to the military taking over. In short: crisis leads to repression leads to loss of democracy. I think it is fairly apropos still. I’d strongly recommend watching it if you haven’t seen it. Costa-Gavras’ best film, IMHO. _State of Siege_ is another of his in this general area. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/28 "2019-04-18T22:05:02Z")
Just finished a Slovak language movie - [The Teacher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Teacher_(2016_film)). An excellent intimate study of power and corruption, as good as anything mentioned above [except Armando Ianucci’s work, which I think is the Shakespeare of the 21st century]. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/29 "2019-04-20T19:51:46Z")
The Death of Stalin was on the mark, I think. The end of the Bourne Identity where the entire operation is swept away in a mundane budgetary meeting because no one in authority knows or cares sums up our state of affairs. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/30 "2019-04-20T20:46:20Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > _Gabriel Over the White House_ (1933) - Depression-era presidential fantasy in support of fascism to solve the country’s (and world’s) problems. Damn that movie was creepy. President starts thinking he speaks for God, starts rounding up and summarily executing those people that he considers undesirable, and then convinces the nations of the world to throw away their weapons in one boring ass speech. And then, he ascends to heaven while the angelic choir sings. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/31 "2019-04-20T21:07:13Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > _Wag the Dog_ seemed pretty accurate. The book it’s based on specifically calls the President George H. W. Bush, instead of using a fictional President like the movie does. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/32 "2019-04-20T21:33:38Z")
_Primary Colors_ (1998) and _Ides of March_ (2011) are two of my favorites, although they’re about political campaigns rather than governing. _Nixon_ (1995) is also a great political drama, although it has Oliver Stone’s usual excesses. I also don’t think Anthony Hopkins was the right choice to play Nixon, although I’d be hard pressed to come up with a better choice. I would agree that _All the President’s Men_ is the greatest political film ever made. I love how quietly intense it is. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/33 "2019-04-20T22:11:58Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I’ve been beaten to _Dave_ but how about _Charlie Wilson’s War_? I love that film, and see it as a great candidate for the most accurate film about how politics actually happens. I read the book, and they had to drop things that actually happened because audiences would not believe them. Like an intermediary between Wilson and Joanne Herring who had been a stunt man for Tom Mix. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/34 "2019-04-20T23:04:10Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > _Nixon_ (1995) is also a great political drama, although it has Oliver Stone’s usual excesses. I also don’t think Anthony Hopkins was the right choice to play Nixon, although I’d be hard pressed to come up with a better choice… Frank Langella in _Frost/Nixon_ was amazing in that role, and was frankly cheated out of the Oscar that year. I think Sean Penn has done better performances than Harvey Milk, but it’s not surprising he won an Oscar for that one. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/35 "2019-04-20T23:08:09Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > The Death of Stalin was on the mark, I think… Like gaffa’s comment about Charlie Wilson’s War, you couldn’t include the truth about many of those monsters, for fear you’d be thought of as kidding, or making a propaganda piece. Beria’s habit of raping every woman he felt like, for one. Hilarious movie though. Next time, I’ll watch with subtitles, really a good idea with any Iannucci work. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2019, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/36 "2019-04-21T12:28:36Z")
I have to mention a Charlie Wilson joke from Adlai Stevenson… Wilson was the Secretary of Defense, and Congress wanted him to sell his shares in General Motors. Adlai, with his usual quick and economic wit said, “Star defensemen may be penalized for holding” ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/37 "2019-04-21T23:04:01Z")
Being There 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/38 "2019-04-22T00:35:17Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > _Wag the Dog_ seemed pretty accurate. [The book was better](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1068092.American_Hero). (It was also totally bananas, but I do recommend it if you lived through the Bush 41 administration – it’s a _roman a clef_.) Ah, I see Rick Kitchen pointed that out already: > [@](#): > > The book it’s based on specifically calls the President George H. W. Bush, instead of using a fictional President like the movie does. Curious, Rick – didja like the book? I loved the faux-scholarly format of the scenes involving historical figures, although the fictional characters (and their plot lines) were a bit meh. Still better than the movie. * * * Some of the earlier nominees strike me as stretches for the category of “political movie,” but hey, the personal is political and all that\*. I’ll add _[Nashville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_(film)),_ a 1975 Altman ensemble piece which features a third-party presidential campaign as a motif and perfectly captures the vapidity – and attractiveness – of a certain kind of common-sense populism (_cough_Perot_cough\*\*)._ \*\*_vague paraphrase of Jean-Luc Godard, asked during a Q&A whether film was a “revolutionary medium” (as in "politically revolutionary)_: \ ***“There’s nothing revolutionary about a bullet. But if I take it, _and I shoot Nixon with it_, it becomes a revolutionary bullet.”** ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/39 "2019-04-24T17:31:47Z")
I really liked _Deterrence_. Sitting president campaigning for re-election gets snowed in by a huge blizzard while stopping at a small diner. Diner patrons and the President’s entourage are trapped together in a claustrophobic setting when a political/military crisis erupts in the outside world. Two caveats: firstly, it’s more about the interpersonal politics of people trapped together in a crisis than about the functioning of the state. Secondly, it stars now-disgraced Kevin Spacey. ---
**Author:** ![MortSahlFan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@MortSahlFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MortSahlFan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516/40 "2019-04-25T22:40:52Z")
> [@snoe](#): > > [The book was better](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1068092.American_Hero). (It was also totally bananas, but I do recommend it if you lived through the Bush 41 administration – it’s a _roman a clef_.) > Ah, I see Rick Kitchen pointed that out already: Curious, Rick – didja like the book? I loved the faux-scholarly format of the scenes involving historical figures, although the fictional characters (and their plot lines) were a bit meh. Still better than the movie. > > * * * > > Some of the earlier nominees strike me as stretches for the category of “political movie,” but hey, the personal is political and all that\*. I’ll add _[Nashville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_(film)),_ a 1975 Altman ensemble piece which features a third-party presidential campaign as a motif and perfectly captures the vapidity – and attractiveness – of a certain kind of common-sense populism (_cough_Perot_cough\*\*)._ > > \*\*_vague paraphrase of Jean-Luc Godard, asked during a Q&A whether film was a “revolutionary medium” (as in "politically revolutionary)_: \ ***“There’s nothing revolutionary about a bullet. But if I take it, _and I shoot Nixon with it_, it becomes a revolutionary bullet.”** “Nashville” of course… Not only my #3 favorite of all-time, but the first 5 minutes says so much, but overall its a great piece of Americana… Even “The Queen” of Nashville seems to have apathy toward everything… “Except them Kennedy Boys, but they were different.” to her husband (possibly the next governor of TN), “This isn’t Dallas, they can’t do this to us” – of course they can. Even the look on Ms. Can’t-Get-Enough shows the first sign of reality. And who saves the day? The most talented one that everyone shunned, and only received a chance because of a tragedy… As the saying goes, (paraphrase) “Evil can only be done when good men do nothing” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-or-accurate-political-movies-ever/832516.md?page=3)