BEST PRESIDENTS ON SCREEN

Michael Douglas as Andrew Shepherd (“The American President,” 1995) No one said every admirable screen president had to be one who actually existed. Part of the magic of Douglas’ portrayal of a president who finds love with a lobbyist (Annette Bening) is that he admits he’s fallible ... though it takes him quite a while to get there in Aaron Sorkin’s script.

Harrison Ford as James Marshall (“Air Force One,” 1997) OK, so this one wasn’t a real president, either – but when terrorists invaded his official airplane and began harming his associates and threatening his wife and daughter, Marshall admirably drew on his physical and logistical skills to dispatch the enemies his way.

Martin Sheen as Josiah Bartlet (“The West Wing,” 1999-2006) For those who know “The American President,” there was great pleasure in watching Sheen rise from being chief of staff to having the main chair in the Oval Office himself in this NBC series also developed by Aaron Sorkin, whose typically smart writing was absolutely made for the show and the character. Frank Langella as Richard Nixon (“Frost/Nixon,” 2008) Recreating his stage performance under Ron Howard’s direction, Langella used inflection and body language brilliantly to capture the essence of Nixon in the latter’s post-resignation interviews with David Frost (Michael Sheen).

Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln (“Lincoln,” 2012) With the quality of actor Day-Lewis – who earned his third Oscar as best actor here – and director Steven Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner, it’s no surprise that this profile of Lincoln would be as compelling as it is, not only from the political standpoint but in terms of the subject’s relationship with wife Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field).