Best movies about politics (according to you)

As 2024 draws to a close, you may be tired of seeing politicians act like they’re stars in a blockbuster movie.

As the holidays approach and you settle down by the proverbial fire, why not watch an actual movie about politics?

The film skewers and satirizes a political system that deserves both. They warn us of the dangers of power hunger and reveal the human weakness and ego at the heart of it all. And sometimes they give us reason to believe in a higher purpose of politics.

Last week I asked you to tell us your favorite political movie. And we asked our newsroom. Maggie Haberman’s favorite political movie isparallax view” is a 1974 Warren Beatty thriller film about a newspaper reporter investigating an assassination. Our next Washington bureau chief, Dick Stevenson, is the author of the 1976 classic “Dear President’s subordinates.“Lisa Lehrer makes a deep cut: 2008’s romantic comedy.”definitely, maybe‘ is a film about the romantic misadventures of a former political consultant played by Ryan Reynolds.

And then there’s Karl Hulse, our chief correspondent in Washington. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday while I was in the halls of Parliament House with a front row seat to the year-end government-funded blockbuster that no one had asked for. Carl loves the 1964 movie.The Best Man” and HBO’s “recount”, a reenactment of the 2000 presidential election that was said to look just like the real thing. (He would know – he was there!)

I asked him if real politics were a movie, would it be a thriller? tragedy?

“It’s definitely a comedy,” he said.