25 best election movies ever

Fahreinheit 9/11 (2004)

Michael Moore’s political polemic on the use of the September 11th attacks to justify wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begins with the documentary maker suggesting that George W Bush used his connections in Florida to effectively “steal” the 2000 Presidential election from Al Gore. Well, Moore is not known for holding back...

The War Room (1993)

Another documentary, this time a little more measured in tone, following the Clinton election campaign of 1992. Amusing and fascinating, its two chief “stars” George Stephanopoulos and James Carville are great value.

Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Frank Capra and James Stewart… you can’t really go wrong, can you? This classic concerns an idealist who ends up appointed to the US Senate, only to come up against widespread corruption. The movie was unpopular in the US for suggesting that its political system was less than squeaky clean, but outright banned in European fascist countries for showing how democracy can work as a system.

Election (1999)

It’s not often you get to watch an election movie which runs the gamut of pornography plot devices (lesbians, oral, teacher-student, etc). Yet that’s exactly what you’ll get from 1999’s decidedly non-pornographic Election, a comedy that sees Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick duking it out in the high school politics arena. Did we mention the titular election is a three-way?

Milk (2008)

There’s nary a pint of the white stuff on show, dairy fans, but if you wanted to brush up on your US state politics, you could do worse than start with this biopic of Harvey Milk (brilliantly played by Sean Penn), the first ‘out’ gay to be elected to public office in California. Gus Van Sant’s direction includes some of the most ‘70s photography since, well, the ‘70s.