Popcorn and politics 2024

My election year movie recommendations

Microwave some popcorn, pop open the soda, put your feet up, let your guard down and stream into your soul some of my favorite civic-minded cinematic masterworks which I list for you here.

Binge on politics at its most palatable, sometimes playful and always provocative.

Whether it’s in living color or vintage black and white it’s political movie night and who could ask for better fare than these film fables about what’s at stake in 2024.

1. “A Face in the Crowd”. 1957. Directed by Elia Kazan. Starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau. Screenplay by Budd Schulberg.

This is number one on my list because there is no film more relevant to 2024 than this Eli Kazan classic from the fifties. The great writer Budd Schulberg, who wrote the classic masterpiece “On the Waterfront” penned this tale of a populist entertainer who, thirsting for unimaginable authoritarian power, rises to the terrifying top. Sound familiar? And Andy Griffith will blow you away with his gritty performance.

2. “Primary Colors”. 1998. Directed by Mike Nichols. Starring John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates. Screenplay by Elaine May.

Elaine May’s treatment of Joe Klein’s novel based very loosely on the Clinton campaign is a terrific primer on elections and flawed charismatic candidates in modern day America.

3. “The War Room”. 1993. Directed by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker. Featuring James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.

An inside baseball documentary about how two upstart strategists, James Carville and George Stephanopolous, beat incumbent George Bush by changing the way campaigns are conducted and won.

4.“The Ruling Class”. 1972. British. Directed by Peter Medak. Starring Peter O’Toole, Alistair Sim, Carolyn Seymour. Adapted from Peter Barnes’ play by Peter Barnes.

A scathing satire featuring Peter O’Toole as a divinely benevolent British aristocrat who undergoes a profound political transformation. It’s brilliant and funny as Hell. O’Toole, believing he’s Jesus Christ, is ordered by his betters to undergo conversion and believing he is now Jack the Ripper, and campaigning for the House of Lords on a platform that would please the Ripper is rightfully elected to the House of Lords. See this British play turned celluloid masterpiece for the irreverent Marxist manservant alone.

5. “All the President’s Men”. 1976. Directed by Alan J. Pakula. Starring Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Warden, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards.  Screenplay by William Goldman.

A thoroughly thrilling film with a remarkable cast about why the free press matters will make you weep in 2024 as this kind of journalism is becoming extinct in our Republic.

What films shaped your views or inspired you? It was “All the President’s Men” which moved this then 21-year-old moviegoer to think of journalism as a worthy and noble pursuit, a vocation I serve to this day.

6. “The Best Man”. 1964. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Starring: Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Edie Adams. Screenplay by Gore Vidal.

This story of intrigue at a national convention, masterfully written by Gore Vidal at his best, is a topical tale about what goes on behind closed doors in the realm of politics. For those of you who are snobs about contemporary films shot in color “The Best Man” is my Exhibit A proof that many of the most powerful political treatises hail from the age of black and white, telling unforgettable complex moral tales about issues that were anything but black-and-white that still resonate today.

7. “Downfall”. 2004. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. Starring Bruno Ganz. Screenplay by Bernd Eichinger.

What happens when a narcissistic authoritarian tyrant’s vision collapses in on his nation and him. Pray this isn’t prescient.

8. “Brexit the Uncivil War”. 2019. Directed by Toby Haynes. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Sarah Belcher. Written by James Graham.

How algorithms and troll farms shape policy in open democracies by targeting low-information voters online. For 2024 this is the film to watch over and over and over. Be afraid, very afraid.

9. “Idiocracy”. 2006. Directed by Mike Judge. Starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Terry Crews.  Co-written by Mike Judge and Ethan Cohen.

First time I saw this film I dismissed it as a stupid adolescent comedy. Today I consider a prophetic work of genius.

10. “Being There”. 1979. Directed by Hal Ashby. Starring Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas. Written by Jerzy Kosinski.

In this era where political races are won by superficial sound bites, this film about a simpleton, a gardener, who by chance becomes a national figure, is sheer poetry. Two words make this fable unforgettable: Peter Sellers.

11. “All the King’s Men”. 1949. Directed by Robert Rossen.  Starring Broderick Crawford. Written by Robert Rossen.

Based on Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a character based on the Lousiana fascist Huey Long is a harrowing classic movie that reveals the fragile vulnerability of American democracy.

12. “Wag the Dog”. 1997. Directed by Barry Levinson.  Starring Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman.

A screwball comedic take on the classic “wag the dog” trope that seems to arise every October just before the election. It also hints at what awaits us as artificial intelligence becomes widespread.

13. “Lincoln”. 2012. Directed by Steven Spielburg. Starring Daniel Day Lewis. Written by Tony Kushner was loosely based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 2005 biography “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”.

This slice of Lincoln history serves to remind we who often oversimplify the art of politics that politics ain’t simple. This beautiful film details how accomplishing any significant legislative policy change in our very messy and complex democracy requires a sophisticated understanding of strategy. One must be a veritable Lincoln to get anything done in our fractured Union today.

14. “Seven Days in May”. 1964. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Frederic March, Ava Gardener. Written by Rod Serling.

A “How-to do-a-Coup” classic with a great cast. And need I say more than it was written by the stunning Rod Serling?

“Hamilton”. 2020. Directed by Thomas Kail. Starring Lin-Manuel Miranda. Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Based on Ron Chernow’s biography “Alexander Hamilton”.

Silence your cell phones, yell at your TV screen, I encourage you to take in my list of the some of the best political films this political junkie has seen and let this film of a fantastic musical be your reward. During the Trump presidency, I watched this play twice and this film at least 20 times to ease my despair, to lift my American heart by reminding me what the ideals of our revolution were, and why they are still worth fighting for today.

I selected these films with this election year in my mind because these films celebrate many of the themes and issues at the core of this year’s historic contest between fascism and democracy. What are your favorite political films that speak to 2024?

I left so many other political masterworks off this list. Including many of my favorite international films, beginning with “Z”.

If you want a feminist critique that is spectacular, stream Greta Gerwig’s stunning and brilliant “Barbie”.

If you have no clue how our democracy came to be, watch the HBO series “John Adams”, the finest cinematic treatment of the American revolution ever made.

Or sit through Stanley Kubrick’s, “Dr. Strangelove”, a timeless sixties satire on nuclear Armageddon, just because it is brilliant, and spoiler alert, where else might you see Slim Pickens riding an H-Bomb like a bronco into eternity?

Or take in the visually gorgeous “Goodnight and Good Luck”, a take on Edward R. Morrow taking on McCarthyism.

And one more point. This list aside, every film is political. You just have to look deep enough.

This Sunday:

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