Focus Features

The 1949 original, based on the Robert Penn Warren novel, is my all-time favorite. It's loosely based on the life and career of the "Kingfish," Huey Long, but it stands on its own as a cautionary tale about populist demagogues and the corrupting influence of power. It's also, if it need be said, a helluva good movie.

If you want to learn about how Washington works — how it really works — see this movie with a terrific cast headed by Henry Fonda. The back rooms are no longer filled with smoke and the issues have changed but the hardball, behind the scenes politics remain the same.

Politics are complex and so are politicians. There's a lot of good and bad in both, and this John Ford classic gets to the heart of that paradox. No movie serves up a better view of old-style machine politics.

The quintessential campaign movie (and one that may well appear on everyone's list). In focusing on the unseemly emphasis on image and money in modern political campaigns it was prescient in the 1970s and is as relevant as ever now. Much more than a message film, it managed to catch the behind-the-scenes feel of a political campaign in a way that plain rings true.

While not a film about politics per se, it reminds us that politics finds expression in places other than Washington, DC. Edward R. Murrow is not only the patron saint of electronic journalism, he is also a shining example of journalistic courage in the face of partisan bullying. This dramatization of his defining fight against Senator Joseph McCarthy is just about perfect, with director George Clooney hitting all the details of period, personalities, and place right on the nose. (Honorable mentions on the nexus of politics and journalism: All the President's Men and Network.)