Politics on the silver screen

While I could not be more thrilled that this long-fought-for presidential campaign is finished, I’m sure there’s a vast audience out there pouting in a corner anxiously awaiting 2016.

To tide you crazies over for the next four years, I thought I’d compile a list of some of the best and juiciest politically flavored flicks, to sate your appetite for scandal for another four years. Looking at the current political landscape, frankly, these films may not be too far from reality. Enjoy.

1. “Good Night, and Good Luck”

Detailing the 1950s rift between broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow and anti-communist Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy, George Clooney’s black-and-white 2005 film explores themes of government dissension and media accountability.
Clooney used archive footage of McCarthy instead of casting another actor, giving the film an ominous and foreboding tone. In an age of such political polarization, especially on broadcast television, the film feels more important than ever.

2. “Election”

It’s politics on a small scale, but it’s just as significant and much more hilarious.
Tracy Flick, played to perfection by a young Reese Witherspoon, is a manipulating high school senior set on being elected class president in a three-way election.
Matthew Broderick plays the high school teacher determined to undermine her every step of the way. The setting of Nebraska is bland, but the dialogue and performances are dynamite.

3. “The Ides of March”

Clooney’s second directorial appearance of this list, this film chronicles the days leading up to a Democratic primary where two candidates are attempting to secure an endorsement from a North Carolina senator.The politics are dirty and the politicians are even dirtier, pitting the two campaigns against one another in a tale of sex and scandal. The American political system has never looked so filthy.

4. “Charlie Wilson’s War”

The premise couldn’t be more yawn-inducing as a U.S. congressman joins together with a CIA operative to initiate a plan to coordinate and support the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. But with a script by “The West Wing” and “The Social Network” writer Aaron Sorkin, the cast, which includes Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, has plenty of enthralling material to work with. Reagan-era foreign policy has never been this appealing.

5. “Thank You For Smoking”

Featuring a star-making performance from Aaron Eckhart, Jason Reitman’s film depicts the labors of a big tobacco spokesman who lobbies for cigarettes while trying to be a role model for his 12-year-old son. The rotting scab of the lobbying structure, the film surveys the distinct lack of humanity left in the American political system, and by extension, the lack of humanity left in humans.

­— wdmcdona@indiana.edu