6 great movies about presidents
With the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden set for Wednesday, here are six entertaining films are about real and fictional presidents that are set against the backdrop and complicated culture of our nation’s capital.
‘Lincoln’
Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner take an unusual approach to telling the story of one of America’s most beloved presidents, focusing mostly on the first months of Abraham Lincoln’s second term, when he cajoled a reluctant Congress into passing a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Daniel Day-Lewis gives an Oscar-winning performance as Lincoln, capturing the man’s gentle good humor and shrewd — sometimes ruthless — political instincts.
‘Thirteen Days’
The title of this film refers to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the Soviet deployment of nuclear weapons not far from the Florida coast pitted John F. Kennedy and his inner circle against both the Russians and their own Joint Chiefs of Staff. Director Roger Donaldson and screenwriter David Self still successfully dramatize the tension and paranoia brewing when Kennedy (Bruce Greenwood), his brother Robert (Steven Culp) and his adviser Kenneth O’Donnell (Kevin Costner) scrambled to out-negotiate their rivals.
‘Seven Days in May’
The characters in this 1964 thriller are fictional, but the situation feels all too real. Kirk Douglas plays a Marine colonel who suspects that a hawkish Air Force general (Burt Lancaster) is organizing a coup against a pacifist president (Frederic March). Director John Frankenheimer and screenwriter Rod Serling adapt a novel by Charles W. Bailey II and Fletcher Knebel into an offbeat war movie,
where the soldiers fight in boardrooms instead of battlefields, attacking using clandestine meetings and phone calls.
‘All the President’s Men’
Based on Carl Bernstein’s and Bob Woodward’s account of how they investigated the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post, this film conveys the day-to-day business of gossip, leaks and social networking in the nation’s capital. But it’s also a rousing story about how citizens and journalists can serve as a check on the executive branch whenever presidents and their staff start imperiously ignoring or bulldozing over federal laws.
‘Dave’
In this 1993 comedy “Dave,” Kevin Kline plays an ordinary guy who looks just like the president. When he is asked to pose as POTUS while the
real one recovers from a stroke, Dave soon finds himself embroiled in a plot involving scandal, chicanery and romance. What makes this picture so delightful is Kline’s endearingly upbeat performance as someone who genuinely enjoys the privileges of the presidency.
‘The American President’
In this 1995 romantic drama, Michael Douglas plays the title character, a Bill Clinton-like centrist Democrat prone to push for popular legislation rather than taking controversial stands. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s story, directed by Rob Reiner, is mostly about the widowed president’s love affair with an environmental lobbyist played by Annette Bening. But the movie also imagines an idealized Washington, where the right speech at the right time can change minds and perhaps save a nation.