Election Day Movies
Well, it's Election Day, everybody.
As this is being published, it's Tuesday, November 3, 2026, and Americans are heading to the polls. Some of you have already voted by mail, some voted early, and some of you are probably standing in line right now.
Whatever the case, I hope you're participating. Given everything happening in this country and around the world, I think voting is more important than ever. It's one of the most important responsibilities we have as Americans, and if you've already cast your ballot, good for you.
Now, let's talk about something considerably more entertaining than standing in line at a polling place.
Movies about elections.
I love political movies. I love movies about campaigns, candidates, corruption, backroom deals, dirty tricks, spin doctors and idealistic newcomers who discover just how ugly the political process can be.
I especially love political satire, because if there's one thing American politics has consistently provided filmmakers, it's an almost endless supply of material for comedy.
Sometimes the actual political world is so ridiculous that the satirists can barely keep up.
Hollywood has been fascinated with politics for nearly a century, and the movies have changed right along with the country's attitude toward its government.
In the 1930s and 1940s, filmmakers like Frank Capra celebrated the honest little guy standing up against powerful, corrupt institutions. His 1939 masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, with James Stewart as an idealistic young senator, is probably the definitive example.
Capra also made Meet John Doe in 1941, a wonderful film about a homeless man, played by Gary Cooper, who becomes the unwitting face of a manufactured political movement. It's funny, moving, cynical and surprisingly relevant more than 80 years later.
By the late 1940s and 1950s, the movies were becoming more skeptical. Robert Rossen's All the King's Men from 1949, with Broderick Crawford as a politician who transforms from idealistic reformer into a corrupt demagogue, is one of the great American political films.
John Ford's The Last Hurrah from 1958, starring Spencer Tracy as an aging political boss running one final campaign, is another terrific examination of the political machinery and the people who operate it.
Then came the 1960s and 1970s, when the Cold War, political assassinations, Vietnam and Watergate made distrust of government practically a national pastime.
John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate from 1962 is a brilliant, twisted nightmare about brainwashing, assassination and political manipulation, featuring an absolutely chilling performance by Angela Lansbury.
That same year, Otto Preminger's Advise & Consent took audiences into the ruthless political maneuvering surrounding a controversial cabinet nomination.
The 1970s gave us some of the greatest political thrillers ever made, including Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View and All the President's Men. But one of my particular favorites is Michael Ritchie's The Candidate from 1972, starring Robert Redford as an idealistic young lawyer who runs for the Senate, gradually compromises everything he believes in and finally wins, only to realize he has absolutely no idea what to do next. It's funny, cynical, beautifully written and incredibly perceptive.
Warren Beatty is another filmmaker whose political interests have produced some extraordinary movies. I've always been a huge admirer of Beatty as an actor, director, writer and producer.
His magnificent Reds from 1981 is one of the great political epics, and even Shampoo from 1975, which appears to be a comedy about sex and relationships in Beverly Hills, is deeply political. Set during the 1968 presidential election, it uses Richard Nixon's victory as a backdrop for a brilliant examination of American society, wealth and selfishness.
And then, in 1998, Beatty made Bulworth, one of my favorite political satires of all time.
I absolutely love Bulworth.
Beatty wrote, directed, produced and starred in the film as a disillusioned United States senator who arranges his own assassination and then, believing he has nothing left to lose, begins telling voters exactly what he thinks.
He abandons the carefully manufactured political language and starts speaking with outrageous honesty. It's wildly funny, occasionally preachy and very clearly coming from a particular political perspective, but it's also fearless, imaginative and surprisingly moving.
The movie has a wonderful sense of outrage about the influence of money, corporations, racial inequality and the absurdities of modern political campaigning. It's one of the most potent political satires of the last several decades, and I think it's even more relevant today than when it came out.
The 1990s were particularly fertile territory for political satire, with cable news, nonstop campaign coverage and increasingly sophisticated political consultants providing filmmakers with a whole new set of targets.
Tim Robbins made Bob Roberts in 1992, a brilliant mockumentary about a right-wing folk singer running for the United States Senate. Robbins wrote, directed and starred in the movie, and even wrote the satirical songs performed by his character.
It's a very funny, very angry examination of the way entertainment, media manipulation and carefully manufactured imagery can overwhelm actual political ideas.
Then there's The War Room from 1993, one of the greatest political documentaries ever made. Filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker followed Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, focusing on the people working behind the scenes to get him elected.
James Carville and George Stephanopoulos become the central characters, and watching them navigate the daily chaos, scandals and political calculations is fascinating. It's funny, tense, revealing and filled with moments no screenwriter could possibly invent.
And then there's Wag the Dog from 1997.
Directed by Barry Levinson, with a screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, Wag the Dog is one of the great political satires of the modern era. Robert De Niro plays a political fixer brought in to distract the public from a presidential sex scandal just before an election. His solution? Hire a Hollywood producer, played brilliantly by Dustin Hoffman, to manufacture an entirely fictional war.
It's an outrageous premise, but the movie makes it seem frighteningly plausible. Hoffman is hilarious as the egomaniacal producer who treats the fake war like his next big movie, and De Niro is terrific as the calculating professional who understands that controlling the story is often more important than controlling the facts.
It's a savage satire of politics, Hollywood, television news and the way public opinion can be manipulated through images and manufactured emotion.
Another one of my absolute favorites is Primary Colors from 1998, directed by Mike Nichols and written by the brilliant Elaine May, based on the novel by Joe Klein. I think Primary Colors is one of the greatest political movies ever made.
John Travolta plays Jack Stanton, a charismatic Southern governor running for president, with Emma Thompson as his equally formidable wife, Susan. The characters are very clearly inspired by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the film follows the campaign through scandals, moral compromises, backroom deals and the enormous pressure placed on everyone involved.
What makes Primary Colors so special is the combination of Nichols' direction, May's extraordinary screenplay and a terrific cast that also includes Adrian Lester, Billy Bob Thornton and Kathy Bates.
The movie is funny, intelligent, cynical, moving and filled with fascinating characters who are constantly being forced to decide how much of themselves they're willing to sacrifice in order to win.
And speaking of brilliant filmmakers who understand satire, we have to talk about Alexander Payne. Payne is one of my favorite writer-directors, and his first two features are among the sharpest, funniest and most uncomfortable political satires ever made.
His debut, Citizen Ruth from 1996, stars Laura Dern as a pregnant, drug-addicted woman who becomes the center of an increasingly ridiculous battle between abortion-rights activists and anti-abortion protesters. Both sides attempt to use her as a symbol for their causes, while Ruth herself is primarily interested in surviving the mess she's gotten into.
It's a savage, uncomfortable, incredibly funny movie that takes aim at political extremism, hypocrisy and the way supposedly principled people can become so obsessed with their causes that they forget about the actual human beings involved. Dern is absolutely magnificent, and Payne immediately established himself as a filmmaker with a remarkable talent for exposing the absurdities of human behavior.
Then came Election in 1999, which I think is a masterpiece.
Reese Witherspoon plays Tracy Flick, an ambitious, frighteningly determined high school student running for class president. Matthew Broderick plays Jim McAllister, a teacher who becomes increasingly obsessed with stopping her from winning.
What follows is one of the funniest, nastiest and most brilliantly constructed satires of political ambition ever made.
Witherspoon is extraordinary. I still think it's the finest performance of her career. And Broderick gives what may be the best performance he's ever delivered, playing a man whose resentment, jealousy and self-righteousness gradually destroy his life. It's hilarious, painful and incredibly perceptive.
The genius of Election is that Payne takes something as seemingly insignificant as a high school student council election and uses it to expose everything ugly about adult politics.
The ambition, manipulation, hypocrisy, personal grudges, cheating and desperate need to win are all there. The stakes may be considerably smaller than a presidential election, but the behavior is exactly the same.
And while we're talking about political comedy, I have to mention Dick from 1999, directed by Andrew Fleming. This is a wonderfully goofy, very funny reimagining of the Watergate scandal, told through the eyes of two completely clueless teenage girls played by Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams.
The girls accidentally become involved with Richard Nixon and the Watergate cover-up, and the movie turns one of the most infamous political scandals in American history into an absurd comedy involving teenagers, presidential paranoia and increasingly ridiculous misunderstandings. Dan Hedaya is hilarious as Nixon, and the entire cast seems to be having a wonderful time.
It's a silly movie, but it's also smarter than it initially appears. Fleming understands the historical material, and the comedy works because the film uses actual political events as the foundation for its ridiculous alternate version of history.
Political filmmaking has continued to evolve, of course. George Clooney's The Ides of March from 2011 examined the moral corruption of a young campaign staffer played by Ryan Gosling. HBO's Game Change from 2012 dramatized the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, with Julianne Moore delivering a remarkable performance.
And documentaries like The Great Hack, along with films like Brexit: The Uncivil War, explore how social media, personal data and targeted political messaging have transformed modern elections.
International filmmakers have also made some extraordinary political movies. Pablo Larraín's No from 2012, starring Gael García Bernal, examines the advertising campaign that helped defeat Augusto Pinochet in Chile's 1988 referendum.
The Indian film Newton from 2017 is a wonderful dark comedy about an election official attempting to conduct a fair vote in a dangerous, conflict-ridden region. Different countries, different political systems, but the same fundamental questions about power, representation and manipulation.
And here's another thing I love about political movies: they start conversations.
Sometimes those conversations are thoughtful and interesting. Sometimes they're heated. Sometimes people completely disagree about what a movie is trying to say. And sometimes somebody gets so angry about politics that you begin to wonder whether bringing up the subject at a family gathering was such a terrific idea.
Which brings me to Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is coming up, and I know we're all looking forward to sitting around the table with family members we haven't seen in a while, eating turkey, drinking wine and inevitably having somebody bring up politics.
It's practically an American holiday tradition. Somebody mentions an election, somebody else disagrees, Uncle Whoever starts talking about something he saw on television, and suddenly the mashed potatoes have become a weapon. Maybe politics isn't the best subject for Thanksgiving dinner.
Then again, politics affects our lives, our communities and our future. It should be something we're willing to discuss, even when we disagree. The trick is remembering that the person sitting across from you is still a human being, even if you think their political opinions are completely insane.
And movies can help us have those conversations. They can challenge our beliefs, expose hypocrisy, celebrate idealism or simply remind us how ridiculous human beings can become when power is involved.
Some political movies are openly partisan, some are angry, some are cynical, some are documentaries, and some are so funny that you almost forget how serious the subject matter really is.
The 15 movies I've selected aren't necessarily the most important political movies ever made, and they certainly don't all represent the same political point of view. Some are about actual elections, some are about the people trying to win them, and others examine the corruption, manipulation and absurdity surrounding the political process.
A few are documentaries, several are satires, and some are terrific dramas and thrillers. They're simply 15 of my favorites, and I've put them in chronological order rather than ranking them.
After all, how do you compare something like The War Room with Election? They're completely different movies doing completely different things, and I love them both.
So, on this Election Day, I hope you've voted or are planning to vote. Once you've cast your ballot, go home, relax, turn off the endless election coverage for a couple of hours and watch a good movie.
Maybe one about politics. Although, depending on which one you choose, you might end up feeling considerably more cynical about the entire process than you did when you walked into the polling place.
Happy Election Day, everybody. Here are my 15 favorite movies about elections and politics, presented in chronological order.
TOP 15 BEST ELECTION DAY MOVIES (in chronological order):
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