And by political movies I mean specifically movies that deal with the political process, so mmovies like Syriana although a great movie, and others like that (Blackhawk Down, The Manchurian Candidate, etc.) don't count.

Here's my top 10:

The Last Hurrah - The finest movie ever made about bill City politics and the "political machine" starring Spencer Tracy

Advise and Consent - Otto Preminger's film about party politics when a 2nd term president nominates a liberal for Secretary of State, starring Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton.

The Contender - Gary Oldman and Joan Allen

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - Jimmy Stewart in the classic Frank Capra movie about greed, corruption and cynicism in Washington Politics; my ATF political film.

Bullworth - What would happen if a candidate didn't care and just started telling the truth?  Starring Warrn Betty

All the King's Men - Based on the life of Lousiana kingpin Louie Long

The Great McGinty - A classic Preston Sturges film.

Dave - A sharp-witted comedy about what makes a good president, starring Kevin Kline

Wag the Dog - Barry Leninson's sharp satire about Washington politics starring Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman

Truman - HBO's fascinating bio starring Gary Sinese

The Best Man, All the President's men, 7 Days in May, The Candidate, Primary Colors, Scandal,Good Night & Good Luck, Wag the Dog, Frost/Nixon & Charlie Wilson's War.

I'm too lazy to add info on these titles,so, if interested, search them out on imdb.com.

Speaking of laziness,whose gonna start the fim noir thread ?----not in the mood.-----

Digressing back to political films, I've purposely omitted Oliver Stone's "JFK" as a laughable exercise in far left propaganda. LBJ responsible for JFK's death ?! Kook Jim Garrison "whitewashed" ? Laughable domestic scenes between Costner & Spacek ?!-----What was so striking in '91 now looks like high camp.

The ONE conspiracy that I MAY believe in ( this will harten Meinarsche ),is that JFK MAY have been killed from an alliance between the Mob & Cuban CIA agents.

But that's a subject for another thread.

-- Modified on 4/27/2010 9:09:31 AM

"Dave" was very entertaining.

"Truman" was extremely well done and closely followed the tremendous book by David McCollough.  Gary Sinise did a magnificent job portraying the President.

Another very good film that starred Sinise was "Wallace."  Sinise played the Alabama governor and was very convincing.

Mob wanted JFK dead because after "delivering" election for Kennedy in '60 ( in Cook county ), JFK turns against Mob using his Attorney General
brother RFK to go after them.

The CIA Cubans were pissed because JFK pulled out military support during Bay of Pigs.

Both the mob & CIA worked together in failed attempts to assassinate Castro; wouldn't be a stretch that these 2 embittered factions wanted to "hit" JFK.

Then there's the Oswald factor: why did he gain re-entry to U.S. so quickly after renouncing citizenship & going to USSR, when dozens of US defectors to Russia were denied same re-entry ?
Why 47 years later does US intelligence agencies refuse to open files about the assassination ?

Not a stretch to say Oswald was lone gunman; computer ballistic tests show that highly possible. However, did he act alone ? I have my strong doubts.

The ONE conspiracy theory that MAY be true---the rest is for the "tinfoil hat " crowd-------

-- Modified on 4/27/2010 2:04:48 PM

here's one that's fallen down the memory hole ; A Lion Is in the Streets [James Cagney, directed by Raoul Walsh]

Kevin Spacey is awesome!!

and believe me, there are VERY few Cagney movies I haven't heard of!

What's it about??

That was a very good flick... and Spacey was great, but I think Laura Dern stole the movie with her portrayal of Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

It's amazing that many of the socially revelant films today are being produced by and shown on HBO and not in theaters...

The fact that you're a fan of that movie is somewhat suprising considering which side of the asile you lean toward. It demonstrated pretty clearly that Bush stole the presidency.

-- Modified on 4/27/2010 10:44:19 PM

ala "All the King's Men".

Great political thriller about the Greek junta in the 1960's, starring Yves Montand and directed by Costas Gravis.

Two people watch the same movie and take away two differnt views....

I agree it was left leaning, but they did have the speech from James Baker about "what people are going to say..." which I think sums it up.

BTW, I thought Laura Dern so over played the role it was pretty pitiful. If you lean far to teh left you would love it, but it was really unrealistic. However, huge kudos to Denis Leary (he is always outstanding).

I actually thought the most unfair thing about the entire movie was the way it trashed the Supreme court. I do not want to start the argument all over, but the Florida Supreme court was granting things Gore did not even ask for. I think the US Supreme court ended what has bordering on a National Crisis and acted in the best interest of the country, not because my side got the nod but because the uncertainty was ended.