To celebrate Obama getting four more years, we look back at what we think are the ten best movies to feature The Most Powerful Man In The World (no, not The Incredible Hulk).
10. Thirteen Days
Set during the incredibly tense Cuban Missile Crisis, showing the behind the scenes mentality leading up to the possible invasion of another country, with Bruce Greenwood as JFK and Kevin Costner as one of his most trusted advisors.
9. Dave
The President suffers a heart attack while having an affair, so the secret service find a doppelganger (Kevin Kline) to fill his shoes until he recovers. But this new president falls in love with the First Lady (Sigourney Weaver), leading to some hilarious consequences.
8. Frost / Nixon
Before he was the world-renowned talk show host he would become, David Frost (Michael Sheen) interviews former President Nixon (Frank Langella) about the Watergate scandal. An intelligently directed and fiercely acted drama.
7. The Contender
Even though there is a president involved (played by Jeff Bridges), this focuses more on the potential vice-president (Joan Allen) and the political mud-slingers she’s exposed to when the press and in-(White)house investigators start raking through her murky past.
6. Independence Day
When aliens attack, it’s up to nerdy Jeff Goldblum, heroic Will Smith and President Bill Pullman to save the day. So cheesy you could put it on toast, but the rousing “Today is OUR Independence Day” speech at the end is still epically awesome.
5. Bob Roberts
Tim Robbins writes, directs and stars in this movie about a corrupt right-wing folk-singer running a crooked election campaign. The kind of movie The Campaign should have been, prepare to laugh at and feel queasy about politics all at the same time.
4. JFK
Another Kevin Costner starrer, this time as a District Attorney who has discovered there is more to the assassination of John F Kennedy than meets the eye. Insightful investigation or jumped-up paranoia theories? You decide.
3. The American President
Proof that not all Presidents are evil, this comedy-drama from the writer of The West Wing has the widowed POTUS (Michael Douglas) fall in love with a lobbyist (Annette Bening) and how their relationship strives to survive the resulting public reaction.
2. Air Force One
President Harrison Ford and his family get hijacked on the world's most famous plane by Gary Oldman's Russian accent. Yes, it's dumb, but it's also incredibly fun, and features one of the greatest lines of dialogue in cinema history: "Get off my plane!"
1. All The President's Men
News reporters Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) are the real-life guys who discovered the information that lead to the Watergate scandal and the eventual resignation of President Nixon. Not just a great Presidential movie, but one of the all-time greatest movies ever made.
Special Mention:
- Mars Attacks; President Jack Nicholson tries to stop Martians from destroying all of the national monuments.
- Nixon; Anthony Hopkins gives a master-class in acting, even if the movie itself is more interesting than entertaining.
- Deep Impact; Morgan Freeman (a black president?!) tries to get the world ready for armageddon.
- The West Wing; yes, we know it’s not a movie, but it’s too awesome not to include on any kind of Presidential list.
- Veep; ditto.
