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If President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump share any common ground, it may be a penchant for playing themselves in movies and TV.
Trump had big screen cameos in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Zoolander, and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, not to mention TV appearances on Sex and the City and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Given his recent resignation from the Screen Actors Guild after the union threatened to remove him, don’t look for him showing up in HBO’s revival of the latter two.
Biden’s 36 years in the Senate and eight as Vice President, limited his “acting” opportunities, but he still found time to play himself in two episodes of Parks and Recreation (Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope was a Biden stan), a 2016 episode of Law & Order SVU (he lauds Mariska Hargitry’s Lt. Benson’s work on behalf of sexual assault victims) and even a 1993 episode of the children’s game show Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (he good-naturedly razzes host Greg Lee).
But with another impeachment trial and debates over a COVID relief package dominating the news, this President’s Day, why take a break from the contemporary commanders in chief and stream a movie or show depicting one of our country’s great leaders from the past? There are plenty of choices out there, be it Stephen Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated Lincoln, HBO’s John Adams miniseries, or Oliver Stone’s conspiracy thriller JFK. Or if you want something a little less prestigious, check out Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, the late Robin Williams as a living Teddy Roosevelt wax figure in the Night at the Museum series or FDR singing “Tomorrow” in the original Annie.
But what about some of the United States’ lesser leaders? Where can you get your fill of presidents who are remembered more for their awesome facial hair than their groundbreaking policies? You have to do a little more digging to find those. Alas isn’t some young director out there willing to tell the story of John Tyler’s successful quashing of the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island? How about a workplace comedy about Grover Cleveland’s four years in a New York City law firm in between presidential terms?
In the meantime, we’ve done the work, here are seven movies or shows featuring some of the presidents whose faces aren’t carved into the sides of mountains or minted on coins.
William Henry Harrison
APPEARED IN: Parks and Recreation (Season 7, episode 3)
Although the ninth president himself doesn’t make an appearance, this episode of the NBC sitcom is a dream for lovers of presidential minutiae. The plot revolves around Leslie’s discovery that the land she wants to make a national park was once home to Harrison’s hunting lodge. The highlight of the episode is a trip to the Harrison museum where exhibits include a fanciful look at America had Harrison not died 32 days into his presidency (headlines include, “Great Depression Over After One Week” and “HBO’s ‘The Wire’ Sweeps the Emmy Awards”) and a hall of other famous Harrisons (Ford, George, Bachelor host Chris).
Gerald Ford
APPEARED IN: Hot Shots! Part Deux
An early scene in this 1993 parody of the Rambo movies features fictional president Tug Benson (Lloyd Bridges) at the groundbreaking of his presidential library with the five then-living presidents. As a newscaster reports from the scene, Benson, shovel in hand, inadvertently injures the dignitaries; jabbing Reagan in the foot, hitting Bush in the crotch, throwing dirt in Nixon’s face, and clomping Carter’s noggin. Only Ford remains unscathed from the carnage, but true to his reputation as klutz, he just falls down by his own volition.
William Taft
APPEARED IN: Greatest Game Ever Played
The corpulent commander in chief’s only big screen appearance comes in a brief scene in this 2005 movie chronicling golfer Francis Ouimet’s remarkable victory in the 1913 U.S. Open. Taft, an avid golfer, attended one of the qualifying rounds and is portrayed here by Canadian actor Walter Massey cheering on Ouimet and his improbable caddy, 10-year-old Eddie Lowery.
Warren G. Harding
APPEARED IN: Boardwalk Empire (Season 1, Episode 8)
Steve Buscemi’s Nucky is in Chicago for the Republican National Convention and decides to throw his influence (and the powerful New Jersey delegation) behind dark horse candidate Harding, less because of Harding’s uninspiring Laissez Faire rhetoric and more to dash the vice presidential hopes of a senator who has crossed him. Nucky’s classic reaction upon learning from a train conductor that Harding has secured the nomination? An incredulous, “That imbecile is going to be the next President of the United States.”
Martin Van Buren/John Quincy Adams
APPEARED IN: Amistad
It’s a presidential twofer in Spielberg’s 1997 retelling of the legal battle that ensued after a mutiny aboard a U.S.-bound slave ship. Anthony Hopkins isn’t eating any liver with fava beans, but he is chewing plenty of scenery as former president Quincy Adams, who argues for the slaves’ freedom before the Supreme Court. Standing in his way is the current president, Van Buren, whose worried freeing the slaves will lose him the election and move the country closer to civil war.
Rutherford B. Hayes
APPEARED IN: Assault at West Point: The Court-Martial of Johnson Whittaker
Whitaker, one of the first black cadets at West Point, stands accused of faking an assault in order to avoid an exam. Although the evidence is preposterous, Hayes here appears briefly to reluctantly approve Gen. William Sherman’s request for a court martial. The real drama in this 1994 Showtime drama is between Whitaker’s lawyers: Sam Waterson, playing against his usual do-gooding type as a patronizing racist, and Samuel L. Jackson, mustering all the restraint he can to not unpack one of his signature cans of verbal whoop ass.
John Tyler, Calvin Coolidge, Etc.
APPEARED IN: Futurama (Season 6, episode 22)
Maybe animation is cheating, but how can we resist an episode called “All the Presidents’ Heads,” which features, well, all the presidents’ heads. The plot involves licking the presidents’ preserved heads and then time traveling to their era (the gang licks Coolidge and find themselves at a speakeasy, for instance). As with all time travel, they inevitably change the past, letting Great Britain quash the revolution. But after setting things straight, a relieved Leela proclaims that all the presidents’ heads have returned—”even John Tyler.” To which No. 10 drolly remarks, “That’s the first anyone’s spoken to me in 1,200 years.” Would somebody please make that Dorr Rebellion movie?
