MY TOP FOURTEEN POLITICAL MOVIES
May 14 '01
The Bottom Line Each of these movies is about some aspect of "politics" which is really a part of all of our lives.
So, the subject is the ten best political movies. Having been fascinated by, disgusted by, intrigued by and finally involved in politics most of my life, this category interested me. But, as I began to think about my favorite political movies, I realized that this is a broader
category than it first appears to be. From my list, you'll find comedies, love stories, stories of greed and purely political movies. The latter are actually a fairly small number. As is usual for me in these categories, I have listed a group of Honorable Mentions first and a somewhat
larger number than ten best political movies due to unavoidable ties in my mind. So here are my honorable mentions in no particular order;
NIXON. 1995. Dir. Oliver Stone. Stars Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Power Boothe.
Who could be more political that Tricky Dick. Stone does a credible job here when he's not inventing scenario that he thinks might have happened. Hopkins is magnificent as is Allen as Pat Nixon.
TRUMAN. Dir. Frank Pierson. Stars Gary Senise, Richard Dysart, Diana Scarwid. This made for TV movie was a showcase for Senise. We get the full Harry Truman treatment
here. Not the quiet backwoods boy that some have called him but the Cock of the Walk, the buck stops here president who I happen to believe the greatest president in our history.
MALCOLM X. (1992) Dir. Spike Lee. Stars Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall. Has to be when Denzel started asking himself "What do I have to do to win an Oscar?" Incredible acting by Washington about a person who still is controversial. Director Lee is much more balanced in his presentation of Malcolm's life than I would have guessed.
AMERICAN HISTORY X. (1998). Dir. Tony Kaye. Stars Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Ed, the talking horse, (just trying to see if you are awake), Stacy Keach. Norton is
one of my favorite young actors and he is wonderful as a white supremist who has seen the evils of his ways and tries to save his little brother (Furlong) from the same hateful fate. Powerful with excellent writing.
REDS. (1981). Dir. Warren Beatty. Stars Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrman, Jack Nickolson, Paul Sorvino. Based on the real life of leftist journalist Jack Reed, I found this to be a fascinating tale of early Russian Communism. It seemed so great to the idealists
but nasty people like Stalin kept getting in the way. Beatty is great all-around as director, actor and writer but a fairly sappy love story keeps it from being in my top ten.
GUNGA DIN. (1939) Dir. George Stevens. Stars Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joan Fontane. This film is loosely based on Rudyard Kipling's story but is one of the great adventure films in Hollywood history. The "political" part comes in the "civilized" British haven't to put down the nasty natives of India. It is actually a political, adventure comedy and has great action scenes for the time. Grant and Fairbanks were great
swashbucklers.
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. (1965). Dir. David Lean. Stars Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Alec Guinness. No one used Panavision like David Lean. Sharif plays an
orphan who is a poet and a doctor married to one woman (aristocrat Chaplin) but in love with the much more political Cristie. Covers the years of the Russian Revolution, WWI and the years of disappointment after the revolution. Really more of a love story built within political times.
And now for my top "10" which shows my skills in new math. We are using the base 14 as I have a four-way tie for 10th place:
10. ELECTION. (1999). Dir. Alexander Payne. Stars Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein. The story of a high school teacher who tries to show down the ego and campaign for school president. Broderick is the teacher and he's great as is the over- achieving Witherspoon. Although told about a high school election, the movie could be about any of the modern day campaigns. Hilarious.
10. A FACE IN THE CROWD. Dir. Elia Kazan. Stars Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick. Fantastic acting debut for the later famous Griffith has him
playing a bum who rockets to the top of the television world with his homespun, Will Rogers-like philosophy. Trouble is he's a jerk but is gaining political power because the people don't know what he's really like. Neal discovers him and then dreads what she's helped create.
10. GANDHI. (1982). Dir. Richard Attenborough. Stars Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud. Three epic of the man who lead Indian to her independence.
Kingsly is absolutely superb and won the Oscar for his portrayal of one of the greatest men of the 20th Century. A little slow at times but very accurate historically.
10. MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. (1962). Dir. John Frankenheimer. Stars Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury. The powerful story of mind-control
over a Korean War prisoner (Harvey) who is programmed to assassinate the president, this movie was removed from view for years after the John Kennedy assassination. Great
performances by Sinatra and Harvey. Murder She Wrote lady isn't so nice in this one.
9. CLOCKWORK ORANGE. (1971). Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Stars Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee. Incredibly powerful satire of a future (now a present) when society's answers
to violence are often as destructive as the problem. McDowell should have won an Oscar for his performance as the Head Misfit but the movie was a little too strong for many to accept. Mind control by the state was shown to be the failure it now is.
8. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON. (1939). Dir. Frank Capra. Stars James Stewart, Jean Arthor, Claude Rains. Capra was the champion of Americana at its best and
Stewart was perfect for the role as an idealistic young Senator who finds Washington (hold on to your hats) full of corruption. Sixty plus years have not dulled the appeal of Stewart fighting the bad guys and an all-star cast backs him.
7. DR, STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB. (1964). Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Made in the height of the Cold War and satirizing such serious movies as Fail Safe and On the Beach, this still is a comedy with a message. Forgot to mention it stars Peter Sellers (in 3 roles), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens and James Earl Jones. Sellers plays the President, a British Captain and a mad scientist who always reminds me of Henry Kessinger. Never has war or the
possibility of war been so funny.
6. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. (1976). Dir. Alan J. Pakula. Stars Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards, Jack Warden. The Watergate story brought to life. Filmed only two years after Nixon resigned as President, Redford and Hoffman are great as the reporters who broke much of the story (Woodward and Bernstein) with the help of an unidentified Deep Throat. Perfectly renders the paranoia of the times.
5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. (1962). Dir. David Lean. Stars Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif. Knockout biographical account of T. E. Lawrence and his adventures in the Arab world of the early 20th Century. O'Toole's movie debut should have won him an Oscar. Reissued in 1988 with beautiful restorations of Lean's
cinematographic masterpiece. All-star cast and incredible action scenes.
4. CITIZEN KANE. (1941). Dir. Orson Welles. Stars Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane. At the top of many "Greatest Movie" lists, this really is a political story of the power of yellow journalist like William Randolph Hearst. Welles also co-wrote this movie which had a hard time reaching the screen due to threatened boycotts by the Hearst chain. Welles used techniques that had never been used before and have seldom been equalled to this day. Powerful movie about a power-mad tyrant.
3. SCHINDLER'S LIST. (1993). Dir. Steven Spielberg. Stars Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes. One of the most moving films I have ever seen, I was lucky to be sitting next to a gentleman who had lost one half of his family to the Holocaust. I say "lucky" because he
explained certain things to me during the movie that I probably would not have understood and he led a discussion after the movie. I have loved several of Spielberg's movies but this film was good enough to finally win him an Oscar. The story is based on a best-seller by Thomas Keneally about a real-life businessman who profited by selling goods to the Nazis but ended up saving more than 1200 Polish Jews. Why Neeson did not win the Oscar is a
mystery because he is magnificent as Schindler. So is Kingsley as the accountant for and conscience of Schlinder. And Ralph Fiennes does an incredible job as the Nazi commandant that epitomizes the hatefulness of the "final solution" of the "Jewish problem." A true
masterpiece.
2. ALL THE KING'S MEN. (1949). Dir. Robert Rossen. Stars Broderick Crawford, Joanne Dru, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge. Not-so-fictionized version of a U.S.
Senator from Louisiana based on the life of Huey Long. From Robert Penn Warren's novel, the acting job by Crawford is amazing (especially for those of us that remember him in
Highway Patrol). Crawford and McCambridge won Oscars for their performances and the film was named best movie. Long was a bigger-than-life character who easily could have
been president and Crawford shows both his charming and monstrous sides. Without a doubt the best portrayal of a true-life politician ever made.
1. JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG. (1961). Dir. Stanley Kramer. Stars Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Maximilian Schell,
Montgomery Clift. Fifteen years had gone by before this film was made. The hatred of the Nazis was still pretty vivid and this movie presents an excellent view of one of the most important trials in history. Tracy is wonderful as the chief judge but so are Lancaster as the proud former Nazi General, Widmark as the prosecutor, Schell in the unenviable role of defense attorney and Clift as a still shell-shocked survivor of the Holocaust. Dietrich came
out of retirement to play the widow of a German officer and does a great job of acting. The tenseness of the entire trial is well documented in this riveting account of soldiers who went too far for their fanatical leader.
Well, I've just finished another book. I love politics even though it's not exactly fun and games. I hope this list was useful.
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