Greatest Election Movies of All Time
TOP 50
# | Title | Released | Director | Top Lists | |
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18 | A Face in the Crowd | 1957 | Elia Kazan | Greatest Election Movies | “A Face in the Crowd” charts the rise of a raucous hayseed named Lonesome Rhodes from itinerant Ozark guitar picker to local media rabble-rouser to TV superstar and political king-maker. Marcia Jeffries is the innocent Sarah Lawrence girl who discovers the great man in a back-country jail and is the first to fall under his spell.
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19 | All the King's Men | 1949 | Robert Rossen | Best Picture Winners, Greatest Election Movies | Jack Burden is a newspaper reporter who first hears of Willie Stark when his editor sends him to Kanoma County to cover the man. What’s special about this nobody running for county treasurer? He’s supposedly an honest man. Burden discovers this to be true when he sees Stark delivering a speech and having his son pass out handbills, while the local politicians do their best to intimidate him. Willie Stark is honest and brave. He’s also a know-nothing hick whose schoolteacher wife has given him what little education he has. Stark loses the race for treasurer, but later makes his way through law school, becoming an idealistic attorney who fights for what is good. Someone in the governor’s employ remembers Stark when the governor needs a patsy to run against him and split the vote of his rival. The fat cats underestimate Stark; but Jack Burden, Stark’s biggest supporter, overestimates the man’s idealism. To get where he wants to go, Willie Stark is willing to crack a few eggs – which include his tough-talking assistant, Sadie Burke; Jack’s poised and elegant fiancée, Anne Stanton; and even Jack Burden himself.
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1 | All the President's Men | 1976 | Alan J. Pakula | Greatest Election Movies | In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of Republican fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party, and eventually into the White House itself.
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31 | Anytown, USA | 2005 | Kristian Fraga | Greatest Election Movies | All politics is local in this hilarious burlesque of a documentary following a tightly-run mayoral race in the small town of Bogota, New Jersey. When the much-reviled–and legally blind–Republican incumbent Steven Lonegan boldly announces he will run for re-election, the citizens of Bogota go on the offensive to unseat him. Enter Democrat Fred Pesce, coaxed from retirement to share the ticket. With his health in question, and his politics compared to those of Tony Soprano, the field is wide open for sight-challenged town booster and former local football hero Dave Musikant to step in as a long-shot write-in independent candidate–officially making it the only mayoral race in the nation where two of the three candidates are legally blind! Add to the mix the machinations of Jesse “The Body” Ventura’s campaign manager, and Anytown USA resonates as an all-too-familiar look at the charade of partisan politics in our increasingly polarized nation.
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48 | Ballot Box Bunny | 1951 | Friz Freleng | Greatest Election Movies | Yosemite Sam is running for mayor, and one of his campaign promises is to get rid of all the rabbits. When Bugs runs against him as the “pro-bunny” candidate, Yosemite uses a number of elaborate stunts to eliminate his opponent (which all backfire). In the end, they’re defeated by a dark horse candidate (an actual dark horse!).
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29 | Betty Boop for President | 1980 | Dan Dalton | Greatest Election Movies | Betty Boop runs for president in a loose storyline assembled from Fleischer cartoons redrawn by Korean animators. |
21 | Black Sheep | 1996 | Penelope Spheeris | Greatest Election Movies | Comedy about the prospective Washington State Governor Al Donnelly whose only stumbling block on the road to power is his embarrassing younger brother Mike. To keep him out of mischief, Al forces one of his aides, Steve Dodds to keep an eye on him during the election. However, this is easier said than done…
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15 | Bob Roberts | 1992 | Tim Robbins | Greatest Election Movies | Documentary-style look at the fictional Senatorial campaign of Bob Roberts, an arch-conservative folk singer turned politician. This political satire includes several original songs co-written and performed by writer/director/star Tim Robbins, and cameo appearances by other stars as reporters and news anchors.
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20 | Bulworth | 1998 | Warren Beatty | Greatest Election Movies | Senator Jay Bulworth is facing speculation-induced financial ruin, so he puts out a contract on his own life in order to collect a large, new insurance policy for his family. Living each moment on borrowed time, he suddenly begins spouting raw, unfiltered–and sometimes offensive in word but satirical in spirit — thoughts to shocked audiences and handlers in the speech of hip-hop music and culture. His newfound uninhibitedness and new relationship with Nina carry him on a journey of political and spiritual renewal.
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12 | Citizen Kane | 1941 | Orson Welles | Greatest Election Movies, Sight & Sound 2022 Critics' Top 100, Sight & Sound 2022 Directors' Top 100 | A group of reporters are trying to decipher the last word ever spoken by Charles Foster Kane, the millionaire newspaper tycoon: “Rosebud.” The film begins with a news reel detailing Kane’s life for the masses, and then from there, we are shown flashbacks from Kane’s life. As the reporters investigate further, the viewers see a display of a fascinating man’s rise to fame, and how he eventually fell off the top of the world.
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24 | Dave | 1993 | Ivan Reitman | Greatest Election Movies | Bill Mitchell is the philandering and distant President of the United States. Dave Kovic is a sweet-natured and caring Temp Agency operator, who by a staggering coincidence looks exactly like the President. As such, when Mitchell wants to escape an official luncheon, the Secret Service hires Dave to stand in for him. Unfortunately, Mitchell suffers a severe stroke whilst having sex with one of his aides, and Dave finds himself stuck in the role indefinitely. The corrupt and manipulative Chief of Staff, Bob Alexander, plans to use Dave to elevate himself to the White House – but unfortunately, he doesn’t count on Dave enjoying himself in office, using his luck to make the country a better place, and falling in love with the beautiful First Lady…
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5 | Election | 1999 | Alexander Payne | Greatest Election Movies | Tracy Flick is running unopposed for this year’s high school student election. But school civics teacher Jim McAllister has a different plan. Partly to establish a more democratic election, and partly to satisfy some deep personal anger toward Tracy, Jim talks popular varsity football player Paul Metzler to run for president as well. Chaos ensues.
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8 | Game Change | 2012 | Jay Roach | Greatest Election Movies | Summer, 2008: John McCain secures the nomination, but polls behind Barack Obama. Strategist Steve Schmidt suggests a game changer: picking a conservative female with media savvy, unknown Alaska governor Sarah Palin, as vice president. She’s an immediate hit and a quick study – the gap closes. Then, Tina Fey’s impersonation, a raft of criticism, and missing her family send Palin into a near-catatonic state: she doesn’t prepare for her Katie Couric interview and bombs. Schmidt searches for an answer: don’t expect her to learn the issues, but give her a script. Palin does well in the debate with Biden; she finds her voice, goes off script, and goes rogue. A mistake?
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22 | Gangs of New York | 2002 | Martin Scorsese | Greatest Election Movies | Having seen his father killed in a major gang fight in New York, young Amsterdam Vallon is spirited away for his own safety. Some years later, he returns to the scene of his father’s death, the notorious Five Points district in New York. It’s 1863 and lower Manhattan is run by gangs, the most powerful of which is the Natives, headed by Bill “The Butcher” Cutting. He believes that America should belong to native-born Americans and opposes the waves of immigrants, mostly Irish, entering the city. It’s also the time of the Civil War and forced conscription leads to the worst riots in US history. Amid the violence and corruption, young Vallon tries to establish himself in the area and also seek revenge over his father’s death.
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45 | Head of State | 2003 | Chris Rock | Greatest Election Movies | One candidate for the presidency dies in an accident a couple of weeks before the election. Meanwhile the alderman Mays Gilliam becomes a hero when he rescues a woman and her cat from an old house that would blow up. However his fiancee Kim does not pay his bills and dumps him, and Gilliam loses everything including his fancy car. When Senator Bill Arnot sees the news on television, he plots a scheme with the party advisors Martin Geller and Debra Lassiter to invite Mays to be the party nominee and lose the election for the other candidate, Vice-President Brian Lewis. Four years later, he would be the candidate and would have the chance of winning the election. Mays has a terrible beginning of campaign but when his older brother Mitch Gilliam meets him in Chicago, he advises Mays to be himself. Will he have the chance to be the first African American President of the USA?
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25 | In the Line of Fire | 1993 | Wolfgang Petersen | Greatest Election Movies | Frank Horrigan is a secret service agent who keeps thinking back to November 22, 1963, when, as a hand-picked agent by President Kennedy, he became one of the few agents to have lost a President to an assassin when Kennedy died. Now, former CIA assassin Mitch Leary is stalking the current President, who is running for re-election. Mitch has spent long hours studying Horrigan, and he taunts Horrigan, telling him of his plans to kill the President. Leary plans to kill the president because Leary feels betrayed by the government — Leary was removed from the CIA, and the CIA is now trying to have him killed. After talking to Leary, Horrigan makes sure he is assigned to presidential protection duty, working with fellow secret service agent Lilly Raines. Horrigan has no intention of failing his President this time around, and he’s more than willing to take a bullet. White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent refuses to alter the President’s itinerary, while Horrigan’s boss, Secret Service Director Sam Campagna, is supportive of Horrigan. As the election gets closer, Horrigan begins to doubt his own abilities, especially when Horrigan’s colleague Al D’Andrea is killed by Leary. But Horrigan may be the only one who can stop Leary.
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30 | Journeys with George | 2002 | Aaron Lubarsky(co-director), Alexandra Pelosi | Greatest Election Movies | A documentary about George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign for the White House.
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47 | Knock Down the House | 2019 | Rachel Lears | Greatest Election Movies | A look at the people involved with various political campaigns during the 2018 U.S. congressional election.
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42 | Man of the Year | 2006 | Barry Levinson | Greatest Election Movies | Tom Dobbs, comedic host of a political talk show – a la Bill Maher and Jon Stewart – runs for President of the US as an independent candidate who, after an issues-oriented campaign and an explosive performance in the final debate, gets just enough votes to win. Trouble is he owes his victory to a computer glitch in the national touch-screen voting system marketed by Delacroy, a private company with a rising stock price. To protect their fortune, Delacroy executives want to keep the glitch a secret, but one programmer, Eleanor Green, wants Dobbs to know the truth. Can she get to him?
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39 | Medium Cool | 1969 | Haskell Wexler | Greatest Election Movies | John Cassellis is the toughest TV-news reporter around. His area of interest is reporting about violence in the ghetto and racial tensions. But he discovers that his network helps the FBI by letting it look at his tapes to find suspects. When he protests, he is fired and goes to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.
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36 | Meet John Doe | 1941 | Frank Capra | Greatest Election Movies | As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed “John Doe,” who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate “Doe.” Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it’s worth, until the made-up “John Doe” philosophy starts a whole political movement. At last everyone, even Ann, takes her creation seriously…but publisher D.B. Norton has a secret plan.
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6 | Milk | 2009 | Gus Van Sant | Greatest Election Movies | Using flashbacks from a statement recorded late in life and archival footage for atmosphere, this film traces Harvey Milk’s career from his 40th birthday to his death. He leaves the closet and New York, opens a camera shop that becomes the salon for San Francisco’s growing gay community, and organizes gays’ purchasing power to build political alliances. He runs for office with lover Scott Smith as his campaign manager. Victory finally comes on the same day Dan White wins in the city’s conservative district. The rest of the film sketches Milk’s relationship with White and the 1978 fight against a statewide initiative to bar gays and their supporters from public school jobs.
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40 | My Fellow Americans | 1996 | Peter Segal | Greatest Election Movies | Kramer and Douglas, two former presidents from opposite ends of the political spectrum, become reluctant allies when they become the target of a conspirator in President Haney’s administration. The two ex-presidents realize they have an enemy within the government and set out to find evidence that will clear their names. The search takes them across the Southern Appalachians; along the way they meet a homeless couple, thwart kidnapers in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, and find themselves marching in a gay pride parade.
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7 | Napoleon Dynamite | 2004 | Jared Hess | Greatest Election Movies | Preston, Idaho’s most curious resident, Napoleon Dynamite, lives with his grandma and his 32-year-old brother (who cruises chat rooms for ladies) and works to help his best friend, Pedro, snatch the Student Body President title from mean teen Summer Wheatley.
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3 | Nashville | 1975 | Robert Altman | Greatest Election Movies, Greatest Musicals | This movie tells the intersecting stories of various people connected to the music business in Nashville. Barbara Jean is the reigning queen of Nashville but is near collapse. Linnea and Delbert Reese have a shaky marriage and 2 deaf children. Opal is a British journalist touring the area. These and other stories come together in a dramatic climax.
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37 | Nixon | 1995 | Oliver Stone | Greatest Election Movies | Director Oliver Stone’s exploration of former president Richard Nixon’s strict Quaker upbringing, his nascent political strivings in law school, and his strangely self-effacing courtship of his wife, Pat. The contradictions in his character are revealed early, in the vicious campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas and the oddly masochistic Checkers speech. His defeat at the hands of the hated and envied John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election, followed by the loss of the 1962 California gubernatorial race, seem to signal the end of his career. Yet, although wholly lacking in charisma, Nixon remains a brilliant political operator, seizing the opportunity provided by the backlash against the antiwar movement to take the presidency in 1968. It is only when safely in office, running far ahead in the polls for the 1972 presidential election, that his growing paranoia comes to full flower, triggering the Watergate scandal.
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35 | No | 2012 | Pablo Larraín | Greatest Election Movies | Military dictator Augusto Pinochet calls for a referendum to decide his permanence in power in 1988, the leaders of the opposition persuade a young daring advertising executive – René Saavedra – to head their campaign. With limited resources and under the constant scrutiny of the despot’s watchmen, Saavedra and his team conceive of a bold plan to win the election and free their country from oppression.
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11 | Primary | 1960 | Robert Drew | Greatest Election Movies | It’s the tail end of winter in 1960. U.S. Senators Hubert Humphrey and John Kennedy seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. Wisconsin’s primary – one of the few direct primaries at the time – is on April 5. We see both candidates on the road; it’s retail politics, shaking hands, signing autographs, smiling. We hear part of a standard stump speech from Kennedy; we watch Humphrey talk to farmers in a rural hall. Kennedy is favored. We see his wife, his brother Robert briefly, and on election night his sisters Pat and Eunice. Jacqueline speaks a few words of Polish at a Milwaukee rally. The returns come in; it’s on to Indiana and West Virginia.
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10 | Primary Colors | 1998 | Mike Nichols | Greatest Election Movies | Jack Stanton is running for president. The election is seen through the eyes of young Henry Burton. Along the way Stanton must deal with a sex scandal.
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32 | Shampoo | 1975 | Hal Ashby | Greatest Election Movies | Thirty-something George Roundy is a Beverly Hills hairdresser, who spends as much time sleeping with his female clients as he does doing their hair. Whether they want to admit it, all the women in his life are on the most part aware that they are are not the only one with whom he is sleeping. And some, such as the wealthy and married Felicia Karpf, have a stronger emotional dependence on George than they would like to admit. George’s current girlfriend is Jill, an up and coming actress. Jill’s best friend is Jackie Shawn, one of George’s old girlfriends who left him because he couldn’t make a true commitment to her. In turn, Jackie is currently having an affair with Lester Karpf, Felicia’s wealthy businessman husband. George is unhappy working at a salon owned by Norman, with whom he is constantly butting heads. In his first act of wanting finally to be a grown up, George wants to open his own salon, but doesn’t have the financial resources to do it, and no bank will lend him money for the venture. Felicia at least convinces Lester to consider investing in George. On Monday, November 4, 1968, the eve of the presidential election, this group spends the evening together, first at a dinner party hosted by Lester, and then another private party. Lester asks his potential new business partner, George, to accompany his mistress Jackie, not knowing that George and Jackie know each other. Jill, who is invited to the party by Jackie, invites director Johnny Pope as her date, he who is considering her for a role in his next movie filming in Egypt and perhaps more. Over the course of the evening, George may come to the realization of what he wants in life both professionally and personally, but achieving happiness will depend upon others in his life, they who have known George up to this time only as an uncommitted narcissist.
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34 | Speechless | 1994 | Ron Underwood | Greatest Election Movies | Two political speechwriters fall in love before they find out they are working for candidates on opposite sides.
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28 | State of the Union | 1946 | Frank Capra | Greatest Election Movies | Kay Thordyke loves Grant Matthews and helps him become Republican nominee for President. The party machine begins to worry as Grant begins to speak for himself. At an important dinner his wife Mary condemns corrupt politicians and Grant learns to speak out even more boldly..
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16 | Street Fight | 2005 | Marshall Curry | Greatest Election Movies | This documentary follows the 2002 mayoral campaign in Newark, New Jersey in which a City Councilman, Cory Booker, attempted to unseat longtime mayor Sharpe James.
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43 | Swing Vote | 2008 | Joshua Michael Stern | Greatest Election Movies | November, 2004, New Mexico. Bud is a slacker with one good thing in his life, his engaging fifth-grade daughter Molly. On election day, Bud is supposed to meet her at the polling place. When he doesn’t show, she sneaks a ballot and is about to vote when the power goes off. It turns out that New Mexico’s electoral votes will decide the contest, and there it’s tied with one vote needing recasting – Bud’s. The world’s media and both presidential candidates, including the current President, descend on Bud in anticipation of his re-vote in two weeks. Can the clueless Bud, even with the help of Molly and a local TV reporter, handle this responsibility?
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27 | Tanner '88 | 1988 | N/A | Greatest Election Movies | A behind-the-scenes look at a former Michigan U.S. representative’s campaign as he vies for his party’s Presidential nomination.
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33 | The American President | 1995 | Rob Reiner | Greatest Election Movies | Andrew Shepherd is approaching the end of his first term as President of the United States. He’s a widower with a young daughter and has proved to be popular with the public. His election seems assured. That is until he meets Sydney Ellen Wade, a paid political activist working for an environmental lobby group. He’s immediately smitten with her and after several amusing attempts, they finally manage to go on a date (which happens to be a State dinner for the visiting President of France). His relationship with Wade opens the door for his prime political opponent, Senator Bob Rumson, to launch an attack on the President’s character, something he could not do in the previous election as Shepherd’s wife had only recently died.
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23 | The Best Man | 1964 | Franklin J. Schaffner | Greatest Election Movies | Intellectual William Russell and down-to-earth Joe Cantwell are front runners for a party nomination that will almost certainly mean the Presidency. Cantwell is prepared to use anything to achieve his goal while Russell sees himself as a man of principle – though his philandering means he is relieved his wife is prepared to appear alongside him. Both men crucially need the support of the ailing President, and as the stakes become higher each team has to decide how dirty they are prepared to get.
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38 | The Campaign | 2012 | Jay Roach | Greatest Election Movies | When Cam Brady (D-NC), a four-term Congressman, becomes a liability, the Motch brothers (think Koch brothers) recruit Marty Huggins, the son of a Republican heavy hitter, to run against him and be their vehicle to establish factories in the district that will import cheap Chinese labor. Trouble is, Marty is a lightweight, so his makeover falls to consultant Tim Wattley. The race tightens as Cam constantly shoots himself in the foot, while the prospect of winning also changes Marty and his family’s dynamics. Meanwhile, Cam plays dirty, and Marty cottons on to the Moches’ grand plan. What options do the rich have to get their way?
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9 | The Candidate | 1972 | Michael Ritchie | Greatest Election Movies | Californian lawyer Bill McKay fights for the little man. His charisma and integrity get him noticed by the Democratic Party machine and he is persuaded to run for the Senate against an apparently unassailable incumbent. It’s agreed he can handle it his own way, on his own terms. But once he’s in the race and his prospects begin to improve, the deal starts to change.
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41 | The Distinguished Gentleman | 1992 | Jonathan Lynn | Greatest Election Movies | A Florida con man uses the passing of the long time Congressman from his district who he just happens to share a name with, to get elected to his version of paradise, Congress, where the money flows from lobbyists. But soon he learns the nature of the game and decides to fight back the only way he knows how, with a con.
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14 | The Ides of March | 2011 | George Clooney | Greatest Election Movies | Stephen Meyers is a young idealist who’s brilliant at communications, is second in command of Governor Mike Morris’s presidential campaign, and is a true believer. In the middle of the Ohio primary, the campaign manager of Morris’s opponent asks Meyers to meet; he offers him a job. At the same time, Morris’s negotiations for the endorsement of the man in third place, a North Carolina Senator, hit a snag. A young campaign intern, Molly Stearns, gets Stephen’s romantic attention. Republicans have a trick up their sleeve; Stephen may be too trusting, and Molly has a secret. What’s most important, career, victory, or virtue?
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2 | The Manchurian Candidate | 1962 | John Frankenheimer | Greatest Election Movies | Major Ben Marco (Frank Sinatra) is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army. He served valiantly as a captain in the Korean war and his Sergeant, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), even won the Medal of Honor. Marco has a major problem however: he has a recurring nightmare, one where two members of his squad are killed by Shaw. He’s put on indefinite sick leave and visits Shaw in New York. Shaw for his part has established himself well, despite the misgivings of his domineering mother, Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin (Angela Lansbury). She is a red-baiter, accusing anyone who disagrees with her right-wing reactionary views of being a Communist. Raymond hates her, not only for how she’s treated him but equally because of his step-father, the ineffectual U.S. Senator John Iselin (James Gregory), who is intent on seeking higher office. When Marco learns that others in his Korean War unit have nightmares similar to his own, he realizes that something happened to all of them in Korea and that Raymond Shaw is the focal point.
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44 | The Manchurian Candidate | 2004 | Jonathan Demme | Greatest Election Movies | When his army unit was ambushed during the first Gulf War, Sergeant Raymond Shaw saved his fellow soldiers just as his commanding officer, then-Captain Ben Marco, was knocked unconscious. Brokering the incident for political capital, Shaw eventually becomes a vice-presidential nominee, while Marco is haunted by dreams of what happened — or didn’t happen — in Kuwait. As Marco (now a Major) investigates, the story begins to unravel, to the point where he questions if it happened at all. Is it possible the entire unit was kidnapped and brainwashed to believe Shaw is a war hero as part of a plot to seize the White House? Some very powerful people at Manchurian Global corporation appear desperate to stop him from finding out.
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50 | The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band | 1968 | Michael O'Herlihy | Greatest Election Movies | The Bower Family Band petitions the Democratic National Committee to sing a Grover Cleveland rally song at the 1888 convention, but decide instead to move to the Dakota territory on the urging of a suitor to their eldest daughter. There, Grampa Bower causes trouble with his pro-Cleveland ideas, as Dakota residents are overwhelmingly Republican, and hope to get the territory admitted as two states (North and South Dakota) rather than one in order to send four Republican senators to Washington. Cleveland opposed this plan, refusing to refer to Congress the plan to organize the Dakotas this way. When Cleveland wins the popular vote, but Harrison the presidency due to the electoral college votes, the Dakotans (particularly the feuding young couple) resolve to live together in peace, and Cleveland grants statehood to the two Dakotas before he leaves office (along with two Democrat-voting states, evening the gains for both parties). [ratings]
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46 | The Purge: Election Year | 2016 | James DeMonaco | Greatest Election Movies | It’s been seventeen years since Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) stopped himself from a regrettable act of revenge on Purge Night. Now serving as head of security for Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), his mission is to protect her in a run for president and survive the annual ritual that targets the poor and innocent. But when a betrayal forces them onto the streets of D.C. on the one night when no help is available, they must stay alive until dawn…or both be sacrificed for their sins against the state.
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28 | The Times of Harvey Milk | 1984 | Rob Epstein | Greatest Election Movies | 2 Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Harvey Milk & San Francisco Mayor, ‘George Moscone (I)’ were assassinated by recently resigned Supervisor Dan White on Monday, November 27th, 1978, approximately 8:45 AM to 9:15 AM. Milk’s life leading up to his election, his successful efforts to politically represent San Francisco’s gay community, and the city’s reaction to the assassinations are documented with extensive news film and personal recollections.
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4 | The War Room | 1993 | Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker | Greatest Election Movies | A behind-the-scenes documentary about the Clinton for President campaign, focusing on the adventures of spin doctors James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. Bill Clinton himself is almost never seen.
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13 | Wag the Dog | 1997 | Barry Levinson | Greatest Election Movies | After being caught in a scandalous situation days before the election, the president does not seem to have much of a chance of being re-elected. One of his advisers contacts a top Hollywood producer in order to manufacture a war in Albania that the president can heroically end, all through mass media.
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17 | Weiner | 2016 | Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman | Greatest Election Movies | Serving seven consecutive terms, Anthony Weiner, good friends with and political allies to the Clintons, was once a highly respected member of Congress from New York City, he seen as a man sticking up for the every day person. That all changed in June, 2011 when he was forced to resign in disgrace after admitting that he did tweet lewd “headless” photos of himself from his public Twitter account to women he met online, and that it was not the work of a hacker or that the photos were of someone else. At the time, his wife Huma Abedin, herself a key aide to Hillary Clinton, was pregnant with their first child, she who decided to stand by her man. Two years later with Abedin still by his side, Weiner tries to resurrect his political career in a run for New York City mayor. He realizes that he has an uphill battle not only because of the known previously tweeted photos, but that there are other lewd photos from that era that may also come to light during the campaign. Regardless of the 2011 resignation, Weiner may not want to admit that any wrongdoing in his personal life should affect his ability to do his job as a politician, congressman, mayor or otherwise. He is probably well aware that the behavior associated with the tweeted photos will dog him during the entire election campaign – with some voters not caring what he does in his personal life, some never willing to forgive or forget such behavior, and some in the middle, those who he has to convince to vote for him. But will the collective “they” – including his campaign staff and Abedin – care and forgive a second time around if the behavior has continued, especially if he did or does not own up to it?
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49 | Welcome to Mooseport | 2004 | Donald Petrie | Greatest Election Movies | Monroe “Eagle” Cole is a former U.S. President ready to settle into a quaint little town named Mooseport. He’s ready to take in the lion’s share of endorsement deals and speaking engagements while developing his own presidential library. Meanwhile, Handy Harrison is a local hardware store owner with a girlfriend ready to throw in the towel on their relationship. Just as Monroe is offered the local mayor’s position, he’s found an unlikely opponent in Handy. But ultimately, both men have a lot to lose when the stakes are raised and a simple competition turns into an all out war.
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