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US elections, like elections everywhere, are packed with drama.

There’s ambition and the feelings of double dealing and betrayal that might come from it, and then the excitement of election day itself, when only one candidate can emerge victorious. So, it’s hardly surprising that elections have featured in a plethora of classic Hollywood movies.

Here are seven quite different films featuring US elections.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The Manchurian Candidate was released during the chilliest depths of the Cold War in 1962. Laurence Harvey plays a former soldier, now turned politician, who was brainwashed by Chinese communists after being captured during the Korean War.

He has unwittingly become a sleeper agent and the dastardly plan is that when he is activated (by being presented with a certain playing card) he will assassinate a nominee in the forthcoming presidential election. This will clear the way for a Chinese agent, the Manchurian Candidate of the title, to become president.

Luckily his old army buddy, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), suspects something is up…

The film expertly exploited the Cold War paranoia of the times (and incidentally it popularised the term ‘brainwashing’), helped by the fact it was released right in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

When it was remade in 2004 with Liev Schreiber and Denzel Washington, the Korean War was replaced with the Gulf War, and communists were swapped out for a sinister multinational corporation.

Game Change (2012)

This docudrama was directed by Jay Roach, a director who made his name with the Austin Powers movies in the 1990s but who subsequently with focused on politics with Recount (2008) and The Campaign (2012).

Game Change follows the Republican presidential campaign of 2008. Vietnam War veteran John McCain (played by Ed Harris) had won the party’s nomination. But as he trailed in the polls he made the decision to appoint a virtual unknown, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin (Julianne Moore), as his vice presidential running mate. She was intended to be a ‘game changer’, hence the title.

Palin did indeed become a focal point during the election, with comedian Tina Fey delivering a hugely popular, if controversial, impersonation of her down-to-earth style on the comedy show Saturday Night Live. And Moore’s performance won her an Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.

Wag The Dog (1997)

This dark satire about American electoral politics stars Robert De Niro as Washington spin-doctor Conrad Brean.

Two weeks before an election the sitting President is caught up in a scandal and hires Brean to solve his problem.

Brean enlists a former Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to help. Motss’s solution is to fabricate an entire war, in Albania, to distract the public from the president’s personal scandal. He fakes footage of orphans fleeing the conflict, a heroic prisoner of war and even a theme song. But when the plan works, Motss becomes annoyed by the lack of credit he is getting, and threatens to reveal the fabrication plan.

Through dark comedy, Wag The Dog highlights how disinformation (deliberately creating and spreading fake news) can be used during elections, something that feels incredibly relevant today in the age of social media.

The Ides of March (2011)

This complex political drama, set against the backdrop of a presidential election, was directed by, and also starred, George Clooney. It features Ryan Gosling as Stephen Meyers, an idealistic young press secretary who is working for Mike Morris (Clooney), the governor of Pennsylvania, who is running for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate nomination.

As the campaign progresses, Meyers discovers that the candidate, who he initially admires, has more than his share of dirty laundry. Finally Meyers has to decide whether his own, or his boss’s, political future is more important.

The title is a clue to the film’s themes of betrayal and ruthless political ambition. The Ides Of March was the day Roman general Julius Caesar was assassinated, and it has come to mean a day for treachery and the settling of old scores.

The American President (1995)

Most movies about elections concentrate on the drama of the campaign, and there’s certainly some of that in The American President, which was directed by Rob Reiner in 1995. But it’s also a romance, one that reminds us that politicians, even during election time, are human beings too.

Michael Douglas stars as President Andrew Shepherd, a widower who is running for his second term as president. When he meets environmental activist Sydney Wade (Annette Bening) the two soon fall in love, but his newfound relationship opens the door to political attacks from his rival, Senator Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss). Will Shepherd sacrifice the chance for personal happiness in order to save his political career?

The film’s writer, Aaron Sorkin, stayed with the theme of American politics and the presidency when he created The West Wing, the hit TV show about the people who work at the White House.

All The King’s Men (1949)

Among other kinds of elections in the US are ‘gubernatorial’ elections. These are the elections for the governor of an individual state, and they’re often as packed with drama, intrigue and ambition as presidential elections.

All The King’s Men, made in 1949, is one of the most famous films made about a gubernatorial election. It stars Broderick Crawford as ambitious politician Willie Stark, whose story is loosely based on real-life Louisiana politician Huey Long. Stark is initially an idealistic politician, but over the course of the film, as he runs for election, he becomes more and more ruthless.

All The King’s Men highlights how a politician can start out with good intentions, but then gradually become corrupted by the actions they take to achieve power. Crawford won an Oscar for his performance.

The Candidate (1972)

With leading roles in movies such as Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969) and All The President’s Men (1976) Robert Redford was one of the biggest stars of the 1970s. Here he plays Bill McKay, a candidate in a gubernatorial election who only got the job because nobody thinks his party has a chance of winning.

With apparently no hope of a victory Bill starts saying what he really believes in. But it turns out that this is what some of the voters actually want to hear, and with a triumph possibly in sight he is pressured by his party to moderate his message to try to attract even more votes.

The Candidate is a film about authenticity in politics. Should McKay say what he really believes, or what will help him win?

This article was published in October 2024