For Presidents' Day, 10 political movies and TV shows to give us hope in a trying time
02/17/25
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These are trying times, and we don’t need to say why — we report every day on a certain president’s misdeeds. We can’t ignore the bad news, but sometimes we have to take a break from it, and movies provide a good escape. Here, in honor of Presidents’ Day, we recommend 10 political movies and TV shows demonstrating that sometimes, at least in fiction, the good people prevail. And sometimes they do in real life, and we can hope they will again.
In addition to being available on streaming services, DVD, and Blu-ray, many of these films turn up from time to time on Turner Classic Movies and other cable movie channels.
Dave (1993)
Dave Movie Poster
Kevin Kline stars as Dave Kovic, an operator of a temporary employment agency who’s a look-alike for President Bill Mitchell, a corrupt philanderer. Mitchell’s administration first taps Dave to stand in for him when the president wants to skip an official function. Then Mitchell suffers a stroke while having sex with an aide and falls into a coma, so evil Chief of Staff Bob Alexander (Frank Langella) recruits Dave to impersonate Mitchell indefinitely so Vice President Nance, a man of integrity played by Ben Kingsley, won’t take power and expose Alexander’s own corruption. Dave turns out to be a man of integrity as well. Sigourney Weaver costars as First Lady Ellen Mitchell and Charles Grodin as Dave’s best friend, Murray Blum, who’s trying to find jobs for Dave’s clients in his absence. Written by Gary Ross and directed by Ivan Reitman.
“The plot unfolds with elements that would be at home in a Frank Capra movie, which Reitman crosses here with some sly political satire,” Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert wrote upon the film’s release. “The subtext of ‘Dave,’” he added, “resembles the messages of many of the Capra movies: If people in power only behaved sensibly and with good will, a lot of our problems would solve themselves. Of course, it’s not that simple. But watching ‘Dave,’ there were moments when I found myself asking, why isn’t it?”
Available to stream on MGM+ and Prime Video; also on DVD and Blu-ray.
The American President (1995)
The American President movie poster
Michael Douglas is American President Andrew Shepherd, who’s up for reelection and waffling on some of the liberal positions he’s taken, as he’s being challenged by the right-wing Sen. Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss), who seems to be based on Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton’s chief nemesis in the ’90s. Shepherd is also widowed (I recall one review, which I unfortunately can’t find, calling him a “virile widower”) and falls in love with environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening). Their relationship is complicated by politics, naturally. Will love and liberalism triumph? Well, the film’s written by Aaron Sorkin, who’d go on to give us The West Wing, and directed by Rob Reiner, so you can guess the answer. Martin Sheen, later president in The West Wing, and Michael J. Fox costar as presidential aides, with the latter’s character echoing George Stephanopoulos.
“What’s admirable about ‘The American President’ is that real issues — gun control, the environment — are handled realistically, in a series of subplots leading up to a presidential press conference that has a certain resonance even in the current political climate,” Ebert wrote in 1995. Resonant in today’s political climate as well.
Available on Prime Video, DVD, and Blu-ray.
Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
Gabriel Over the White House movie poster
This is a curiosity that we can recommend with reservations. The great actor Walter Huston (father of John, grandfather of Anjelica) stars as newly elected President Judson Hammond, who’s a political hack and doesn’t really care about the people hurting due to the Great Depression. But while recovering from a concussion and other serious injuries incurred in a car accident, he’s visited by the angel Gabriel — yes, really! — and emerges determined to address the nation’s problems with New Deal-style programs, even if he has to become a dictator to do it, hence our reservations. An important supporting character is Pendola “Pendy” Molloy, a presidential staffer played by Karen Morley. Spoiler alert: “By the end, he has solved the unemployment problem and enforced a worldwide disarmament but dies a martyr for his efforts,” Jeff Stafford wrote on the Turner Classic Movies website. But wait, there’s more.
“The original ending of Gabriel Over the White House was butchered at the request of Louis B. Mayer,” the conservative head of MGM, Stanley Rogouski noted on the Writers Without Money blog. “In the lost director’s cut, Hammond comes back to his senses and tries to renounce everything he’s done since the concussion, but Pendy saves him, stealing his heart medicine so he dies before he can betray his own legacy.”
Gabriel Over the White House was directed by Gregory La Cava, best known, at least to fans of classic films, for the terrific screwball comedy My Man Godfrey and the all-star ensemble drama Stage Door, with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. Despite the film’s flaws, its conceit that divine intervention can change a man who cares about no one to a man who cares about everyone has its appeal.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington movie poster
Reviewers likened Dave and The American President to the movies of Frank Capra; well, here’s one from Capra himself. The director’s films have been called “Capra corn” for their sentimentality, but his tales of ordinary people overcoming extraordinary obstacles have also won much acclaim. Many modern viewers know Capra mostly for It’s a Wonderful Life, a Christmas staple, but his body of work is extensive. The comedy-drama Mr. Smith Goes to Washington tells the story of idealistic newcomer Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), recruited to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate by some corrupt politicians who figure he’s so naïve that he’ll let them get by with anything. Well, they’re wrong. The wonderful Jean Arthur costars as Smith’s secretary, Saunders, and it’s cringe-inducing when he tells her she’s done well “for a woman” when she’s actually the smartest person in the room and should have been the senator herself. But the movie has many pleasures, including Thomas Mitchell as a cynical journalist and Claude Rains as one of the grifters. And it shows what the Senate filibuster once was — instead of a 60-vote threshold for consideration of a bill, it’s holding the floor until you can’t talk anymore.
Some politicians denounced the film at the time for daring to suggest not all of them have their constituents’ best interests at heart, but critics and moviegoers liked it. Mr. Smith is “not merely a brilliant jest, but a stirring and even inspiring testament to liberty and freedom, to simplicity and honesty and to the innate dignity of just the average man,” Frank Nugent wrote in The New York Times when it came out. It has still garnered praise decades later. “While earnestness and honest intentions can be a lesser artist’s downfall, it’s the fuel that runs Frank Capra’s motor, making Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as inspirational today as it was nearly seventy years ago,” Jamie Rich wrote on DVD Talkin 2006.
Available on Prime Video, DVD, and Blu-ray.
All the President’s Men (1976)
All the President's Men movie poster
A lot of smart people are saying we’re on the verge of a constitutional crisis now. Some of us thought we were on the verge 50 years ago, with the 1972 break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate building in Washington, D.C., and the subsequent investigation that exposed the deep corruption of Republican President Richard Nixon. The initial news didn’t make much of a ripple, and Nixon was reelected in a landslide over Democratic challenger George McGovern, considered too far left by many voters, in November 1972. But as more came out, the damning evidence against Nixon mounted, and he resigned in August 1974. Much of the evidence was uncovered by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose book about their experience was adapted for this film, a powerful story of the power of good journalism. Robert Redford stars as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein, with Jason Robards in an Oscar-winning performance as their boss, Ben Bradlee, and Hal Holbrook as the important anonymous source dubbed “Deep Throat,” after a porn movie of the time. Thirty years later, Deep Throat was revealed to be FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt. William Goldman wrote the screenplay and Alan J. Pakula directed.
“Not until ‘All the President’s Men’ … has any film come remotely close to being an accurate picture of American journalism at its best,” Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times. The Chicago Sun-Times’Roger Ebert called it “the most observant study of working journalists we’re ever likely to see in a feature film,” adding, “It succeeds brilliantly in suggesting the mixture of exhilaration, paranoia, self-doubt, and courage that permeated the Washington Post as its two young reporters went after a presidency.”
Available on Prime Video, DVD, and Blu-ray.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
The Manchurian Candidate movie poster
This may not seem like a hopeful movie, but see it through to the end. Laurence Harvey is Raymond Shaw, who was brainwashed by communists as a soldier in the Korean War. His whole unit was brainwashed too — into thinking “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life,” which they know is not true even as they repeat it. Some years later, the other members of his unit start to realize something is wrong, including Major Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), a career soldier. It turns out that Raymond’s monstrous mother, the anti-communist crusader Eleanor Shaw Iselin (Angela Lansbury in a stunning performance), is involved in a huge conspiracy. James Gregory costars as Raymond’s stepfather, Sen. Johnny Iselin, a dim-witted, easily manipulated man who sees communists everywhere, like the real-life Sen. Joseph McCarthy. And John McGiver is a highlight as the liberal Sen. Thomas Jordan, one of Eleanor and Johnny’s chief rivals — watch for the way he pronounces “American Civil Liberties Union.” There’s a large and diverse supporting cast, although Janet Leigh as Rosie Chaney and Leslie Parrish as Jordan’s daughter, Jocelyn, don’t have much to do beyond being supportive love interests for Sinatra and Harvey, respectively. Directed by John Frankenheimer with a screenplay by George Axelrod, adapted from Richard Condon’s novel.
The movie was out of circulation from 1964 to 1988. Legend has it that Sinatra engineered this because of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but Frankenheimer told Roger Ebert it was actually because of a dispute about money. The film was re-released to theaters in 1988 and later came to home video. It remains resonant decades after its first release. “Here is a movie that was made more than 25 years ago, and it feels as if it were made yesterday,” Ebert wrote upon the re-release. “Not a moment of ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ lacks edge and tension and a cynical spin. And what’s even more surprising is how the film now plays as a political comedy, as well as a thriller. After being suppressed for a quarter of a century after its first run, after becoming a legend that never turned up on home video, John Frankenheimer’s 1962 masterpiece now re-emerges as one of the best and brightest of modern American films.”
There was a remake by Jonathan Demme in 2004, with Denzel Washington as Marco, Liev Schreiber as Shaw (the character is now a veteran of the Gulf War), and Meryl Streep as Eleanor Iselin. This time the threat isn't communism but a multinational corporation with mind-control technology. “Whether it will have any political resonance remains to be seen,” A.O. Scott wrote in The New York Times. “The uncanny implications of Frankenheimer’s ‘Candidate’ after all came into focus long after its initial release, when it re-emerged as a curious period artifact in the waning years of the cold war. Mr. Demme’s version, in bright color rather than smoky black and white, is more transparent and less enigmatic. Though its intricate plot is full of surprises, this kind of story no longer has much power to shock.”
The original is on Freevee, Pluto TV, and Prime Video, and the remake on Prime. Both are on DVD and Blu-ray. But the original is the one we recommend.
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
A Face in the Crowd movie poster
A Face in the Crowd may put you in mind of a certain president. If you only know Andy Griffith as Matlock or the Mayberry sheriff, prepare to be blown away by his portrayal of Lonesome Rhodes, a TV personality with political ambitions; behind his folksy exterior are despotic tendencies, contempt for his followers, and an ego that rivals you-know-who's. When he gets his comeuppance, it will make you wish it could happen like that in real life. Patricia Neal is the impresario who promotes his career, and Lee Remick is his love interest. Walter Matthau and Anthony Franciosa also costar, and Elia Kazan's directed from Budd Schulberg's screenplay.
"This is one of the greatest films of the 1950s, a prophetic film about the dangerous power of modern media," Mick LaSalle wrote on SF Gatewhen the movie was released on DVD in 2005. Griffith's Rhodes, he added, is "as cold as a lizard — yet so engaging that people would want to be around him, even understanding that he's basically evil. Griffith's performance is a masterpiece, among the greatest of that decade."
Available on Tubi, Prime Video, DVD, and Blu-ray.
The Best Man (1964)
The Best Man movie poster
The great — and gay — writer Gore Vidal scripted this film, based on his 1960 Broadway hit. The setting is the nominating convention of a major party (it doesn’t say which one), with two very different men vying for the presidential spot. Henry Fonda, cast as usual as a pillar of integrity, is William Russell, a liberal and intellectual former secretary of State, said to be modeled on Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic Illinois governor who ran twice for president — in 1952 and 1956 — and lost to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower both times. Stevenson’s detractors called him an “egghead,” showing that the charge of liberals being “elitists” is not new. Russell’s rival is Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson), an anti-communist witch-hunter in the Joe McCarthy vein. It’s hard to believe these guys could be in the same party, but back in the day, maybe. Both have skeletons in their closets, though. Russell has had a mental breakdown; he’s also an unfaithful husband, the one chip in his integrity, but no one cares much about that. Cantwell has — gasp! — a history of gay liaisons. The question is, will Russell and Cantwell use their secrets against each other? The cast also includes Lee Tracy, Edie Adams, Margaret Leighton, Shelley Berman, Ann Sothern, and many others. Franklin Schaffner directed.
The film won a good deal of praise. “The head‐on clash of two threatening character assassins that was made so engrossing on the stage is even more vivid, energetic and lacerating on the screen,” Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times upon its release. The play has been revived twice on Broadway, in 2000 and 2012. By the way, other films of this title have nothing to do with Vidal’s political drama. Titles aren’t subject to copyright, so different works can have the same title.
Available on Prime Video and DVD.The West Wing (1999-2006)
The West Wing
Courtesy NBCUniversal
The West Wing premiered in 1999, while Bill Clinton was still president, but it became a form of wish fulfillment for liberals during the George W. Bush presidency. Martin Sheen stars as Democratic President Josiah “Jed” Bartlet, a progressive who’s both feisty and compassionate. He’s surrounded by loyal staffers played by Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Janel Moloney, John Spencer, Richard Schiff, Rob Lowe, Dulé Hill, Joshua Malina, and more, while Stockard Channing is First Lady Abby Bartlet. Lily Tomlin, Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Alda, and many others turn up as well. The show was created by Aaron Sorkin and executive-produced by John Wells, and one of its many other producers was Lawrence O’Donnell, now an MSNBC commentator. And who can forget that majestic theme song written by W.G. “Snuffy” Walden?
The series ran during “a period when US liberals, always the show’s major audience, moved from disappointment with a Democratic president to despair at his successor,” Esther Addley wrote in a review of the DVD boxed set for The Guardian. She added, “It is the outstanding ensemble cast that brings WW to life. Ask a fan for their favourite character and they’ll name six. It’s that good.”
Available on Max, Plex, Prime Video, DVD, and Blu-ray.
Madam Secretary (2014-2019)
Madam Secretary
Madam Secretary premiered in 2014, when Barack Obama was president, but in a few years it became a form of wish fulfillment for many of us who were devastated by his successor’s win over a real-life Madam Secretary. Téa Leoni stars as Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord, who serves President Conrad Dalton, played by Keith Carradine. The show is pretty much centrist in its politics; it’s implied that Dalton is a Republican, but he’s a moderate, wise, and kind one, and he eventually becomes an independent. Some of the plots are pretty far-fetched, but watching McCord solve international crises provides a nice escape from political realities. Other regulars include Tim Daly as McCord’s husband, Henry; Zeljko Ivanek as White House Chief of Staff Russell Jackson; Bebe Neuwirth as McCord’s chief of staff, Nadine Tolliver; and Sara Ramirez as Kat Sandoval, policy adviser to the secretary. The series drew some notable guest stars, including one episode with former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and, yes, Hillary Clinton as themselves. And for even more wish fulfillment, stay until the last season.
Margaret Lyons, summing up the show in The New York Times after its conclusion, dubbed it often “square” but added, “When it was at its best … ‘Madam Secretary’ was a calm pleasure, a well-fitted dress shirt, thick stationery, shortbread cookies.”
Available on Netflix, Prime Video, and DVD.
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