Tensions are rising in the race for the White House, and that tension runs through Hollywood's most exciting political dramas, comedies and documentaries.
The current campaign is perhaps the most stormy in American history so far, with a last-minute change of candidate and two dramatic debates, with the possibility (once again) of getting the first female president.
But the race for the White House has intrigued filmmakers for decades, with some very telling results.
Even Frank Capra, the great benefactor of American cinema, took a skeptical look at the whole process.
Some films are fiction that is very thinly veiled reality, others are prophetic fantasy, but all of them find themes that go to the very heart of American democracy and ideals.
Here are some of the best presidential election movies, including an underrated gem from Michael Nichols and Elaine May, another starring Ryan Gosling and George Clooney, and Aaron Sorkin's warm-up for The West Wing.
- The new film about Donald Trump caused a stormy reaction in Cannes
- What do the policies of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump look like?
- Trump or Harris: Who won the presidential debate
1. Primary Colors (Primary Colors, 1998), directed by Mike Nichols
One of Mike Nichols' best and least known films, with Elaine May's rambunctious screenplay, this satire follows a not-so-disguised fictional version of Bill Clinton through the primaries on his way to the White House.
John Travolta is an unexpected choice for the role, but brilliant as Jack Stanton, a Southern governor who can charm his way out of anything.
Travolta manages to capture Clinton's charisma just like the sympathetic looks that say "I feel your pain" without it becoming a caricature.
Emma Thompson plays his wife Susan, Hilary before she built her own political career, whose instincts are as precise as anyone else's.
Based on the 1996 novel by journalist Joe Klein (originally published as the work of an anonymous author), the film takes a behind-the-scenes look as the campaign tries to dispel rumors — some true, some not — about Stanton's swagger.
Adrian Lester, an idealistic young campaign leader, embodies the theme of lost innocence that runs through many American election films.
The film is also very funny as it asks one of the most fundamental questions of 20th and 21st century politics: can a little spin and gossip really hurt if it helps put someone in the White House who will be the best for America?
Even Lincoln stretched the truth, Stanton claims.
2. All the President's Men (1976) directed by Alan Dž. Pakula
One of the greatest films of modern times, All the president's people is, of course, primarily a story about journalism.
But if you look a little closer, you'll see that he's talking about dirty pre-election politics just as much.
Kad Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, Kao Journalist The Washington Post Bov Woodward and Carl Bernstein dig up the truth behind the Watergate break-in and the cover-up that led to Richard Nixon's resignation, most of their investigation leads them to CREEP, the perfectly illustrative acronym for the Republican Committee for the Re-election of the President.
The failed attempt by the committee in question to steal information from the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building was only the first clue that exposed all sorts of other sleazy campaign malfeasance, from illegal payments to defamation.
Still exciting every time you watch it again, this film beautifully weaves together many threads about the US.
The corruption behind Nixon's 1972 campaign is one of the subjects with lasting, instructive influence.
3. Wag the Dog, 1997, directed by Barry Levinson
This satire from the nineties seems more relevant today than ever before, in the age of artificial intelligence and the debate about what facts are.
Robert De Niro is at his witty best as Conrad Brin, a campaign consultant who is called in when news of the president's affair with a young woman surfaces two weeks before the election that is supposed to keep him in office.
One startling footnote: the film premiered just a month before the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke. Clinton's presidency was truly a godsend for filmmakers.
To save the campaign, Brin hires a Hollywood producer - hilariously played by Dustin Hoffman as the ultimate narcissist - to film evidence of a war with Albania that doesn't actually exist.
They even find a non-hero war hero and turn him into a celebrity.
The press swallows it, the public swallows it, and in the end, who can say what reality is anymore?
This cinematic depiction of the intersection of politics and Hollywood is taken for granted today, but David Memet's British script and Barry Levinson's precise direction hold up perfectly well today.
4. The War Room (1993), directed by DA Penebaker and Kris Hegedus
The ground-breaking documentary by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus is based on incredible behind-the-scenes access during Bill Clinton's first presidential bid in 1992 and is considered the version Presidential colors from real life.
Clinton appears only briefly.
The main characters are strategist James Carville and baby-faced communications director George Stephanopoulos, long before he became a news anchor.
The inscription on the wall of the campaign office gives us a now famous replica of what was most important there. "Economics. Stupid."
We watch Stephanopoulos put out media fires, including a phone call in which he tells the reporter in charge of the Clinton rumor that he will look stupid and have no future if he publishes that lie, making the reaction sound like a fact rather than a threat.
That particular rumor has, in fact, been dispelled a long time ago.
The film hypnotically holds the attention as it evokes the youthful energy of a campaign that feeds on hope and adrenaline.
5. The Best Man (1964), directed by Franklin J. Scheffner
Gore Vidal's screenplay is supremely Kennedy-era, but his vision of the machinations of a presidential nominee at a divisive convention still hits right at the heart of many questions about campaign politics, among them money, promises made in exchange for endorsements, and the dark secrets that hidden by the candidates.
Henry Fonda plays William Russell, an experienced secretary of state who is called out of charity by one of his supporters I click.
"Do you think people don't trust intellectuals like you in politics?" a journalist asked him.
Senator Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson, who a year earlier played Kennedy as a war hero in the hagiographic PT-109) is his polished, young rival who adheres to the maxim "the end justifies the means".
Both candidates have dirt on the other, but will they use it?
Vidal takes the homophobia of the era to heart by choosing to have one secret rumor about a gay affair and further complicates matters when one of the rumors turns out to be false.
The noble ending seems forced, but until then the film remains full of intrigue and deep questioning.
6. State of the Union (1948), directed by Frenk Capra
This strong but little-known drama starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn was directed by Frank Capra, and its sharp-eyed cynicism about the political process makes it one of his least sugar-coated films.
Tracy plays Grant Matthews, a successful businessman married to Mary (Hepburn), but embroiled in an affair with the politically ambitious media heiress Kay Thorndike, played by Angela Lansbury.
Kay wants to use her own money and influence to get Grant into the White House, but they need Mary to play the role of faithful wife.
Hepburn brilliantly portrays Mary's pain and disappointment when she realizes she is being used as a campaign prop (a spouse as a prop is one of the most unforgiving aspects of running for office).
Tracy plays Grant as a fundamentally good man who is temporarily seduced by ambition and political brokers.
Like every Capra film, this one has an idealistic ending, but its main value for us today is its articulation of the seduction of power and the compromises necessary to get elected president.
7. The American President (1995), directed by Rob Reiner
If you love The West Wing but wish it was a bit more of a romantic comedy, this is the perfect movie for you.
Before creating his famous series, Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay for Rob Reiner's politically charged romance about Andrew Shepard, charmingly played by Michael Douglas, the president's widower and single father running for re-election.
When he falls in love with environmental lobbyist Sidney Ellen Wade, played equally charmingly by Annette Bening, his advisers instruct him to keep her out of the public eye, and his rivals begin to come down hard on her.
Martin Sheen, before he became President Bartlet on The West Wing, plays Shepard's chief of protocol and best friend, and there's a hint of a TV series in the battle for votes to get Shepard's criminal bill through Congress, along with whether he'll jeopardize his own re-election with support. the draft law on the environment.
But the most characteristic Sorkinian element is the rosy idealism about the possibility of politics doing some good, an idea that enriches this film and sets it apart from the usually skeptical political films of the nineties.
8. The Ides of March (2011), directed by George Clooney
This dynamic film with Ryan Gosling and George Clooney, who also directed it, did not leave much of a mark when it was first shown, perhaps because of its story, with a hint of the Clinton sex scandals, which could have seemed worn out during the Obama years.
When you watch it today, it cleverly draws on the ongoing theme of lost political innocence, with Gosling as Stephen Myers, a young but savvy campaign strategist who begins working for Mike Morris (Clooney), a politically gifted governor running for president.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Steven's jaded boss, and Paul Giamatti is a rival campaign manager in a cast that also includes Jeffrey Wright and Marisa Tomei.
Evan Rachel Wood plays Morris' young intern, and the mere mention of that role is enough of a hint to know where the plot will go.
But the outmaneuvering between the candidates and between the campaigns and the press is so clever and well done that predictability is practically irrelevant.
9. Game Change (2012), directed by Jay Roach
You might laugh to keep from crying in this true-to-life movie about how John McCain's campaign chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his 2008 vice presidential running mate, a cynical, haphazard move that backfired on all possible ways.
This comedy of confusion by Jay Roach stays true to reality, based on the book by John Heileman and Mark Helperin, and occasionally inserts real journalists and politicians into scenes with actors.
Woody Harrelson plays Steve Schmidt, a strategist who insists that McCain (Ed Harris) must do something game-changing, like electing a woman, to have a chance of beating Obama.
With time quickly running out, and very little vetting, they opt for the inexperienced but televised Palin.
Julianne Moore brings Palin to life with incredible verisimilitude, skillfully portraying her unusual way of speaking and with a certain sympathy for the extent to which she is in the dark.
She is so clueless about foreign policy, and if we're talking about foreign countries in general, that Nicole Wallace (Sarah Poulson), the communications director who tries to guide her through it all, simply throws her hands up.
Sobering yet entertaining, this film might be the only positive thing to come out of the whole Sarah Palin debacle.
10. Head of State (2003), director: Kris Rok
The Obama presidency was just a spark in America's eye when Chris Rock wrote, directed and starred in this comedy as Mace Gilliam, a small-time local Washington politician recruited by the Democrats to run for president when their candidate dies unexpectedly just before elections.
It's all a sham: party politicians want to take credit for nominating a black candidate, who will surely lose the election, while leaving the seat open for one of their insiders in the next term.
This, of course, backfires on them.
Mace is an outspoken man who gets along with the working class and is willing to tell them the truth without twisting anything, pointing out inequities and making the masses chant, "That's not right!"
Rock's stand-up comedy is often satirical, but this film is more universally humorous - Bernie Mac plays Mace's loud, swaggering brother - and more serious at the same time.
The film repeats the question first asked back in 1948 in State of the Union: can a truth teller even win?
Head of State it doesn't work all the way.
It takes you out of the movie whenever rapper Nate Dogg jumps in and out of the movie with musical narration.
But it's very lighthearted and fun, so feel free to ignore the 30 percent rating on Rotten tomatoes.
11. Short film bonus: Betty Boop for President (Betty Boop for President, 1932), directed by Dave Fleischer
At a time when the very thought of a woman as president was pure absurdity, Betty Boop ran for office.
A cartoon vamp woman ran with a song in this six and a half minute long animated comedy, promising ice cream and sharing the wealth.
"Some of you have money / While some of you are poor, you know," she sings.
"If you send me to Washington / I'll just split the loot."
She imagines herself in front of an indecisive Congress, with elephants on one side and donkeys on the other, unable to agree on anything.
This short film is a wonderful little curiosity, but, frankly, there were worse candidates.
BBC is in Serbian from now on and on YouTube, follow us HERE.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube i Viber. If you have a topic proposal for us, contact us at bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
Bonus video:
