Would you call the movie Crash a political movie?  It's the best one I've seen in ages.

Crash is playing at your local theatre RIGHT NOW starring a large ensembel cast...Learn more here

I personally always like 'Thirteen Days' as an interesting political movie.  Really though, there hasn't been many recent movies about politics that measure up to All The President's Men....Too bad.

I like "Wag the Dog." It's apropos wrt the Downing Street Minutes.

Is it political?  I think in a way.  But I loved '12 Angry Men' with Henry Fonda.

Here's a couple...

The Pentagon Wars - Carey Elwes and Kelsey Grammer

Air Force Lt. Col. John Burton was assigned to evaluate the usefulness of the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, an Army troop carrier/scout vehicle that, in its final redesign, was effectively a deathtrap for its occupants. Burton keeps trying to execute a proper live-fire armor test on it but is constantly subverted by his temporary commanding officer, Army Maj. Gen. Partridge, in order to get it under construction and in the field(Based on true story). 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144550/

The Arrow - Mini-series about how, in the 50's, Canada designed a jet intercepter that was decades ahead of anything the rest of the world had, and how the USA destroyed the program (A true story).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118641/

I guess it depends on the definition of political movie. Some of my favorites have political implications even when they have no specific political plotline. Here are a few:

1) The Best Years of Our Lives

2) The Year of Living Dangerously

3) Dr Strangelove

4) Apocalypse Now

5) Nuit et Bruillard

All the President's Men is indeed a great film. However, I've always thought it more of a newspaper film, and one of the best ever made.

I'm a huge fan of Frankenheimer (some of his films, anyway), and one of my favorites has always been Seven Days in May (skip the turgid TNT re-make).

Frank Capra's Last Hurrah is a lot of fun, and let's not forget All the King's Men, the title of which Woodstein were riffing on.

Babylon 5 is my favorite political thriller, hands down.  Granted, it's a five year series, not a 120 minute film, but the writer really nails how a democracy can transition to dictatorship using the propaganda of fear, control of the media, and armed thuggery masquerading as defense of the homeland.

Some of the events in B5 seemed to reenact the takeover of the state media in Venezuela during the coup attempt a few years back, as documented in The Revolution Will Not Be Televised -- except B5 was filmed many years prior to the coup.

But if we're sticking to film, I'll take Dr Strangelove, which is a satire rather than a farce, as someone here claimed. 

This is an old one with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. It is smarmy and stoopid in that good old time movie way.

Basic Plot: A few wealthy insiders co-opt a populist movement to mask their fascist aims. What makes it relate still is they set up an astroturf group to create the populist movement with him as the hero. When it all goes to hell they use the police (which they control) to go in and force a riot so they can quell it and then use the astroturf group as evidence to turn against him.

In typical '40s style the quasi-socialists and workers are the true Christian, American patriots and the wealthy capitalists and preachers are the bad-guys.

Funny, I start out thinking it's over the top and then as I describe it--it is all too familiar. 

I have to give assent to those who add "Seven Days in May," and a film that I cannot get out my mind is the screen treatment of "Primary Colors."

Rembered another one, "Salvador" with James Woods, not exactly a political conspiracy thriller, but does get into covert funding of the Contras and so on.

Glad to see that people in this thread remember some of the older, classic political films.  Cudos to the poster who mentioned "All the King's Men."  To me, it's the all-time best political film, with a surprisingly strong performance by Broderick Crawford, earning his Oscar for Best Actor. 

Some films that haven't been mentioned yet that merit viewing:

"Advise and Consent."  This 1950s drama about a confirmation hearing seemed dated in the 1970s, but is surprisingly au currant with its subplot about homosexuality and hypocrisy.

"The Best Man."  Based on Gore Vidal's novel, Henry Fonda plays the type of idealistic statesmen that today's politicians don't even aspire to be anymore.

"The Grapes of Wrath"  This is a political film of the same type mentioned by other posters, such as "It's A Wonderful Life" or "The Best Years of Their Lives."  The film shows everyday events, but in a manner that inspires the audience to support political steps to prevent the injustices portrayed.

The trilogy of films made by Costa-Gavras: Z (which deals with the excesses of the right), The Confession (which deals with the excesses of the left) and State of Siege (which is much more ambiguous from a moral standpoint. All three star Yves St-Montand. Great movies. And then, of course, Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers.

I always liked Failsafe, with Henry Fonda.

Is awesome. Recently there has been a slight push away from the smarm of it but it is truely a progressive epic. Sure it has a lot of sugar but the underlying theme is really so powerful.

The whole concept of an individuals contribution and the impact it has on everyone. As I was reading a Wal-Mart blog I actually thought of this movie just a few hours ago and how Wal-Mart taking over the town could be compared to Potter taking over the bank. George Bailey telling everyone the money wasn't in the Building and Loan, your money is in Mr. So and So's house...like if you buy from your local store its an investment in your community...then there is the always the guy who has the, "But I want mine"--all I have is $112 and that isn't gonna put anyone out on the street...

There are so many great scenes but pretty much anything that Potter says could easily be dubbed over the mouthings of any current neo-con. I can picture Cheney talking about a "thrifty workforce" Some people think that generation is the Greatest Generation because they fought back fascism. I think it is because after going through the depression they realized what social justice was all about.

The neo-cons hate the open morality of the late sixties and seventies in their speeches but what they really hate, and their end-game is to destroy the Peter Baileys of the world.

Bullworth was right on the money.  More than any recent movie about American politics.  It all comes down to campaign finance.  If we could change the way that campaigns are financed, our country would be better off in almost every way. Bullworth nails that point home.  Go rent it if you haven't seen it.

Raindog

"By Dawn's Early Light" - Air Force One crashes just as a nuclear standoff occurs with Russia.
"The Dead Zone" - Martin Sheen as a rabid right winger politician who must be stopped.
"Arlington Road" - Not really political, but one of the best terrorism movies ever made.
"JFK" - Based on a bogus conspiracy, but a great movie nonetheless.
"Nixon" Another top notch Oliver Stone effort. He really needs to go back to making these kinds of movies.
"Absolute Power" - Just kidding.
"Interview with the Assassin" - Not kidding.
"Boys from Brazil"
"Marathon Man"

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the Disney "Alice in Wonderland," with the Mad Hatter's Tea Party as an effective metaphor for the Republican party since Reagan.

For a movie that's really about politics and government, try "The Man", 1972, with James Earl Jones as the first black president. Based on an novel by Irving Wallace, Jones plays a senator who's the president pro-tem of the senate, 3rd in line of succession. The prez and speaker die in a building collapse, and the VP declines to be prez due to ill health. Needless to say, he then faces a number of challenges as his opponents, both racial and political, are out to get him. If I remember correctly, the movie ends with his fight to win nomination at the convention, while the book end with an impeachment trial. The book discusses parallels to the 1868 Johnson impeachment, so it is probably even more politically interesting than the movie.

Unfortunately, the movie does not seem to be avaliable on VHS or DVD. So read the book!

"Gee-From what we know about Frank Capra, wouldn't he have voted for Bush?"

Message, meet messenger. Note that the similarities do not outweigh the differences. Discuss. 

I think All The President's Men and Parallax View should be viewed together as the definitive post-Watergate movies, both by Alan J Pakula.  Both have that subtle nothing-quite-right-in-America sense of paranoia, as the lone protagonists start to unveil a vast sinister political machine.  Remember this was coming after recent revelations of the use of domestic intelligence to control the political process.  Even with recent revelations that the exposure of Watergate was basically a FBI operation (with W&B unwittingly part of that), there are still theories that e.g. Liddy was a CIA mole who deliberately brought down Nixon.

I think of Three Days of the Condor as in a different class, basically a comic bookish version of the same material.

BTW the manner of Pakula's untimely death was something straight out of the Parallax View....

For Kennedy era political movies, I nominate two:

- Manchurian Candidate

- Seven Days in May

For Reagon era, I nominate as the definitive Reagan era movie:

- Being There

I've always thought it eerie that a movie like this came out just as Reagon became president.  The bit at the end seemed like an Illuminati in-joke :-).

For the Clinton era, the best I can come up is the definitive Internet-era movie, The Matrix.  Or perhaps Contact, with its mix of secular science and believe-in-God spirituality (betraying the Sagan novel) that could be said to reflect the middle-of-the-road spirit of the time.  Definitely not garbage like American President or The Adversary, they really demonstrated how incapable Hollywood was in the 90s of doing political movies.  Pure comic books.

For GHW Bush, the best I can think of is Three Kings.  Even if it's basically a remake of Kelly's Heros, at least it had some political points to make about abandonment of the Southern Shiites etc. 

It really has been a long time since we've had a decent political movie, hasn't it?  Hollywood just seems totally incapable, maybe because they're writing their scripts in crayon these days.... 

Oh a very good Clinton-era movie about the war in Bosnia: The Savior,  Very harrowing, I will never forget this movie.

And a good Reagan era movie because the Reagan WH supported many Central American atrocities including the genocide in Guatemala: El Norte. 

Fahrenheit 911

I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang

JFK, Salvador

LBJ (frontline) 

Dark City (sci fi variation or neo noir) 

Detour (45, dark side of am dream) 

Advise and Consent (1962) is not only one of the great neglected political films, it's probably the most incisive depiction of an American political institution in cinema history.

Directed by Otto Preminger, famous for his balanced approach to characters, Advise and Consent is nominally about the troubled nomination of Henry Fonda as a dovish Secretary of State.  Charles Laughton, who plays a Old South conservative senator, tries to dig up info to sabatoge the nominee in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  What unfolds is high drama, and one that offers a corrosive look at the chummy ethos of the Senate and the poisonous partisan atmosphere that was in place in 1962.  For anyone who's following the Bolton nomination or the fillibuster, this movie feels like a prophecy.  

It just came out on DVD.  I think Josh and all the other political junkies here would really take to it.  It moves like lightning and the details feel right.  Plus, nobody's demonized -- everyone's got their reasons.  It's almost as good as The Manchurian Candidate, which is made in the same year, but leagues above stuff like Five Days in May.  One of the very best political films.
 

I'll second the nod to Fail-Safe.  It is a great thriller all around.  Especially with Walter Mathau playing a Rumsfeld-esque consultant.

All the King's Men 

one of the best political novels ever written and one of the first and best political films ever made. It knew it what it was about.  It was ashamed of politics being important.  The title of All the President's Men was a take on it.  

Robert Penn Warreen

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041113/#comment   &nb
sp;  1949
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405676/    2005 remake in production

1949 had a terrific cast,  Broderick Crawford, John Ireland as the journalist who watches the rise of a southern populist politician. Based on the real Willie Long but larger and more intense than its subject. Joanne Dru and the fabulous Mercedes McCambridge.

Primary Colors stole its thematic message from All the King's Men. Primary Colors makes it theme and its subject shallow and paltry.  All the King's  Men, as a book, had enormous literary depth and the movie is just as powerful.

It was directed by Robert Rossen, who also did athe WWII movie A Walk in the Sun and The Hustler among many great films. (A Walk in the Sun was cited in the 40's as an example of "hollywood Communist" propaganda  during the Hollywood blacklist.  It was about a cross section of Americans (southern rural, urban, italian, jewish immigrant who land at Salerno to take an italian farmhouse.) 

Rossen was smart, cool and sentimental at the same time.  He was targeted in the Blacklist after this movie, initially refused to testify but finally crumbled and testified before House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1953. 

If the remake comes out I hope it does the movie and the novel justice.

By the way both titles are aptly take their title from the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the King's horses and..
All the King's men
couldn't put Humpty together again.

This "nursery rhyme" also had a political basis as it referred to the overthrow, fall and execution of King Charles I in the English Civil War of the early 17th century.

http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/biog/charles1.htm

Here is a new one for the mix and a bit of commentary on two already mentioned:

New: Path to War.  This was an HBO movie directed by Frankenheimer.  It is about what Johnson went through on building up in Viet Nam and how it destroyed him.  The key reason to see it is Michael Gambon, who despite lacking the physical size of Johnson manages to convey his intimidating physicality and the torture of this complicated man.  Very much worth a look.

The Best Man.  What amazed me was how well the core of this movie holds up. True, the logistics of how we nominate candidates no longer are left to the whims of the convention floor, but listen to the stances and watch the slithery ethics of Cliff Robertson and you'll swear you are hearing a modern republican as he waxes prosaically on the need for tax cuts.  Examine the ambivalence of Henry Fonda and consider the plight of someone like Gore (and maybe Kerry) who likes the service but hates the campaign.  And there is the lingering difficulty of what to do about homosexuality that in some ways is still with us today (how many closeted repubs do we know of, for example?).

Thirteen Days.  Apart from Kevin Costner's atrocious accent, this was a remarkable and riveting account of the Cuban missile crisis.  Bruce Greenwood (JFK) and Steven Culp (RFK) make the movie, and are thoroughly nuanced and believable as the Kennedy boys, not prone to trusting their pentagon help.  Dylan McDermott is also a memorable MacNamara. The whole thing was taut and reminded me at least of how important it is to have a critically thinking president whether they are an intellectual or not. 

I love 3 Days of the Condor, and only saw the Parallax View once a long time ago. However, what strikes me about them in retrospect is how generic the political bad guys are.  There is no clear identification with party, and for the times that was probably appropriate.  We know that both LBJ and Nixon taped their office conversations, we know that LBJ lied and bullied to get what he wanted.  Both parties were ethically slipshod, and the generic unease these films gave us certainly fit the times. 

But do the fit now? 

I haven't seen many of what I think of as political movies here, I guess they're more social action instead. Dealing with racism, worker's rights, change on a personal level etc.. (Mississippi Burning, Remember the Titans, absolutely Angels in America, A Family Thing, Harlan County War.  I suppose this thread is more about electoral politics in particular. But, anyway, for diversity and because I can, I have to mention my all time favorite movie which is also political:

'Harold and Maude'

The fact that she's a Shoah (Holocaust) survivor escaped my attention the first 20 times or so that I saw it, and just added to it after that. I love the anti-military scenes, the anti-authority themes, the sexual morality issues explored, the spirituality expressed, but most of all the sacred power of the individual.  

"1984" - haven't seen it in years and I probably remember Orwell's book better. But it seems to be the Right's manual of style when it comes to language ("newspeak"). 
And as long as we're on the subject of Orwell, "Animal Farm" ... our move toward plutocracy reminds us that we're all equal, but some are more equal than others.

I don't know whether this strikes a chord for other readers.  But looking over the list of suggestions, two other movies jumped out at me -- ones that are both very different from AtPM but also share some very similar feel and, in a way, mindset.

Yes, and they tend to be given the name paranoid conspiracy thrillers and were a mini-cycle. Frankenheimer's work is often included as prescient examples. But Alan Pakula's trilogy - Klute, Parallax View and All The President's Men - has come to define the genre, which Three Days of the Condor was working in.

Politically, the assassination of JFK and Watergate (and more generally, the growth of FBI and CIA surveillance during the Age of Protest) were the touchstones that formed the core of even nonpolitical films like Klute. Aesthetically, the conspiracy thrillers were a synthesis of postwar Hollywood realism, European art film narration and neo-noir nostalgia. Combining the political and the aesthetic, perhaps the feel that you mention is the politicization of the Maguffin - the enigma that Hitchcock diagnosed in thrillers, one that is used as a hook for the narrative but is easily discarded. Whereas for Hitchcock the Maguffin is apolitical (try making a larger point about the Nazis and the uranium in Notorius), in the paranoid 70s thriller, it comes to stand in for the unknowability of the conspiracy and the power of the government as a control mechanism over the lives of its citizens.

Bob Roberts, hands down.

I think I wore out my VHS of this one while working for Kerry up in PA.  It was scarily prophetic of the '04 season. 

I would include the 1997 film noir L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, which is a political film in the sense that it explores the institutional corruption and racism that existed in the L.A. police force of the 1950s. It's a bold indictment of how the police were used to further the interests of the white power structure. Those problems cast a long shadow we can still see today.

X-Men and X-Men II
Best Gay-Rights films ever made.

P.S.  "Babylon 5" also shows us the xenophobia of right-wing loonies and the malaise (as well as enabling behavior) of electronic news media.

I think you mean `The Seduction of JOe Tynan', which I mentioned elsewhere in the earlier discussion.  I thought that was a superior movie showing Alan Alda's ethical descent and atonement all at once (it probably was too goody goody at the end).  The parts for Barbara Harris as his wife and Meryl Streep as his lobbyist mistress were very well written (and acted--Harris' intuitive recognition of Streep as a lover is amazing) and Melvin Douglas' portrayal of an older senator betrayed by ALda who is on the cusp of senility is also fantastic.  The flash of compassion Alda shows after he stages a stormy hearing exit that exposed his betrayal of Douglas was very memorable.  I remember the film so well from just one viewing that I suspect it would hold up rather well.  After all, ambitious senators who are ethically challenged are still a staple of the DC scene. 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the BBC series "Yes, Minister," which may be the best long-form dramatic (or, more accurately, comedic) treatment of politics; the first series aired in 1980 but it's truly timeless.  We're working through it on DVD (Thanks, Netflix!) and I can see myself assigning it in a few years...