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Well, we’re in the thick of it now. With the Republican and Democratic Conventions behind us, it is full steam ahead to the election in November. With politics in the air, Amazon has been amassing a bunch of political movies onto its platform, all of them available to stream for free if you’re a Prime member.
Some of these movies are based on real-life politicians. Some of them are pure fiction. Some of them are fiction about real-life politicians. It’s a hell of a grab bag, featuring films by Oliver Stone, George Clooney, Rob Reiner, and … well, Emilio Estevez.
Here’s a list of ten political movies you can stream right now, along with the political messages they’re sending.
The Candidate (1972)
Starring: Robert Redford, Peter Boyle, Melvyn Douglas
Directed by: Michael Ritchie
Plot: “Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.”
Political Message: Tweaking the establishment will make you feel good. Telling people what they want to hear will get you elected.
JFK (1991)
Starring: Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Plot: “A New Orleans DA discovers there’s more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story.”
Political Message: The military-industrial complex will get ya, and if they don’t use the CIA to do it, they’ll use the Mafia, or maybe Cuban refugees, or maybe the New Orleans homosexual underworld, or maybe …
Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Starring: Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Anne Archer, Donald Moffat
Directed by: Phillip Noyce
Plot: “CIA Analyst Jack Ryan is drawn into an illegal war fought by the US government against a Colombian drug cartel.”
Political Message: Sometimes, when the President is in bed with Colombian drug cartels, the only response is a bellowing “How dare you, sir!”
The American President (1995)
Starring: Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Michael J. Fox, Martin Sheen, Richard Dreyfuss
Directed by: Rob Reiner
Plot: “Comedy-drama about a widowed U.S. president and a lobbyist who fall in love. It’s all above-board, but ‘politics is perception’ and sparks fly anyway.”
Political Message: Ordering flowers to give to a woman is surprisingly difficult if you’re the President. But also, “dogwood” is a terrible state flower, Virginia.
Good Night and Good Luck (2005)
Starring: David Strathairn, George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson
Directed by: George Clooney
Plot: “Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow looks to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy.”
Political Message: Heroic journalistic crusades against conservative boogeymen will get you that Oscar nomination, but it won’t be enough to beat Crash.
Bobby (2006)
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Helen Hunt, Martin Sheen, Anthony Hopkins, Lindsay Lohan, Elijah Wood, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Christian Slater, Laurence Fishburne, Ashton Kutcher
Directed by: Emilio Estevez
Plot: “The story of the assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy who was shot in the early morning hours of June 5, 1968 in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and 22 people in the hotel whose lives were never the same.”
Political Message: One of the darkest days in United States history was a bummer for Lindsay and Ashton too.
W. (2008)
Starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Richard Dreyfuzz, Thandie Newton
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Plot: A chronicle of the life and presidency of George W. Bush.
Political Message: The embattled presidency of Dubya is interrogated and humanized with an eye towards understanding the political climate that — OMG what in the world is this Thandie Newton performance as Condoleezza Rice?!
The Special Relationship (2010)
Starring: Michael Sheen, Dennis Quaid, Hope Davis, Helen McCrory
Directed by: Richard Loncraine
Plot: “A dramatization that traces former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair’s relationships with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.”
Political Message: Peter Morgan quest to write as many roles as possible for Michael Sheen to play is as single-minded an objective as anything Nixon ever did.
The Ides of March (2011)
Starring: Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Evan Rachel Wood
Directed by: George Clooney
Plot: “An idealistic staffer for a new presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail.”
Political Message: Idealism is dead in modern politics. Also, “The Ides of March” is actually not the most opaque and nondescriptive movie title imaginable when the original title is “Farragut North.”
Game Change (2012)
Starring: Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, Woody Harrelson, Sarah Paulson
Directed by: Jay Roach
Plot: “Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska becomes Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election.”
Political Message: You only need to adapt one-eighth of a political tell-all if that one-eighth is the part that talks about Sarah Palin. Also, you think Julianne Moore doesn’t look anything like Sarah Palin, but if you put those glasses and that hair on anyone, they look like Sarah Palin.
