Certain Rules and Regulations and Procedures: The ILX Political-Film Poll Results Thread

A few ballots came in right at the end, so there’s enough for a Top 52--everything above that got multiple votes (a couple with only two, but the rest with between 3-12). I think I can milk this for three days: #51 (tie) to #36 today, #35 to #21 tomorrow, the top 20 on Wednesday.

There were 23 voters, 419 votes in total, and 168 films listed. All but a couple of ballots designated a #1--two films received more than one #1.

A number of these films are identified with one or two iconic images. I tried to avoid those, so some the images may seem puzzling--not particularly important to the film, or without any major characters. That’s why. For the seven films I haven’t seen (and a few I saw so long ago I remember little), I just went with something that looked good. I reluctantly cropped a lot of images; trying to control the size of the text is otherwise an ordeal (I’m working on a sophisticated program called Microsoft Paint).

51. (tie) Get Out (2017)
26 points/3 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-51a.jpg

51. (tie) Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
26 points/3 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-51b.jpg

I know these things start slow, so I'll just keep plowing ahead at intervals of five minutes or so. I've had this on the shelf for years--will make an effort to finally watch it.

50. In the Loop (2009)
27 points/3 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-50.jpg

I didn’t mention it above, but with ties (like #51), the higher placement went to the film with more votes. A few ties remained.

49. Bob Roberts (1992)
29 points/2 votes
(1 #1 vote)

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-49.jpg

Bob Roberts is too smug by 8 1/2, but seems super-relevant today.

I can't remember if this came out before or after the '92 election--Clinton and Perot certainly figured in. I watched it for a second time just before the 2016 election, when it was getting mentioned here and there in connection to Trump.

"(I’m working on a sophisticated program called Microsoft Paint)."

👍

48. Welfare (1975)
31 points/2 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-48.jpg

This is the real reason I dropped the countdown to 51, so I could get Welfare in there...I've said this many times on other threads, but one of the most great films of the '70s. I did my own screenshot from Kanopy; that scene in particular is amazing. It was one of the first Wiseman films I ever saw, at a retrospective 10 years ago. I've seen 10 or 15 since, many excellent but none the equal of Welfare.

"most great"--"great" will suffice.

Never - to my shame - seen anything by Wiseman.

My favourite after Welfare would be Near Death and a few of the more recent ones. I still haven't seen Monrovia, Indiana. They're all on Kanopy (except Monrovia) if you're good with that (although Kanopy may not be in Britain).

47. The Conformist (1970)
31 points/3 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-47.jpg

Really good film of a mostly good novel. Has some beautiful colours.

I can get a torrent of it sometime (Kanopy seems to require you to be a member of a library)

46. The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
33 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-46.jpg

I thought Gus Van Sant’s film was pretty good...but kind of unnecessary in view of this (although it's always good to reach a wider audience, and maybe the documentary benefited it some ways).

Let me try that again--it's not a countdown without fuck-ups.

46. The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
33 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-46.jpeg

jpeg, not jpg...Whoever came up with that dumb idea?

44. (tie) Night of the Living Dead (1968)
34 points/3 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-44a.jpg

44. (tie) To Be or Not to Be (1942)
34 points/3 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-44b.jpg

43. Grand Illusion (1937)
34 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-43.jpg

42. The Candidate (1972)
35 points/3 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-42.jpg

I thought this would have ended up higher...I think it’s been seen by enough people, but I don’t know, there were complaints even in ’72 that it was superficial, or too obvious, or something. I don’t think so--I think it holds up great. If you had to pick the Bill McKay out of the Democratic field this year, maybe Beto O’Rourke? Except his résumé's thinner than McKay's.

I liked this when I watched it a few years back; probably would have voted for it had it been fresher in my mind. I admittedly had some trouble filling out my ballot--wanted to stick to films that directly featured political figures, even though there aren't a whole lot of them that I love--so when I got to the latter half of my Top 10, I started going with movies that fit the bill that I'd seen recent-ishly and enjoyed.

I can get a torrent of it sometime (Kanopy seems to require you to be a member of a library)

There's a certain thread on the 77 board; shall I start posting links to reasonably reliable streaming sites?

Grim scene. Redford looks uptight--nobody's listening to him, and nobody's digging him.

I didn't do a count or anything, but I think the top 50's split about evenly between films with actual politicians and the more tangential Welfare/Night of the Living Dead-type film.

40. (tie) Casablanca (1942)
36 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-40a.jpg

40. (tie) I Am Cuba (1964)
36 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-40b.jpg

J. Lu: if it'll help people track down something, sure.

38. (tie) The Great Dictator (1940)
38 points/5 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-38a.jpg

38. (tie) The Lives of Others (2006)
38 points/5 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-38b.jpg

Never a that big a fan of Casablanca...maybe when I was younger. A lot of speechifying.

The Great Dictator is another one I'd've probably voted for if I'd seen it more recently.

"There's a certain thread on the 77 board; shall I start posting links to reasonably reliable streaming sites?"

Not on 77.

Love I am Cuba, great still, must've been hard to pick one

Wide range of images to choose from, yeah.

37. The Leopard (1963)
39 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-37.jpg

I’ll resume tomorrow after these last couple.

35. (tie) A City of Sadness (1940)
40 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-35a.jpg

35. (tie) Army of Shadows (1969)
40 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-35b.jpg

So far:

51. (tie) Get Out (2017)
51. (tie) Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
50. In the Loop (2009)
49. Bob Roberts (1992)
48. Welfare (1975)
47. The Conformist (1970)
46. The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
44. (tie) Night of the Living Dead (1968)
44. (tie) To Be or Not to Be (1942)
43. Grand Illusion (1937)
42. The Candidate (1972)
40. (tie) Casablanca (1942)
40. (tie) I Am Cuba (1964)
38. (tie) The Great Dictator (1940)
38. (tie) The Lives of Others (2006)
37. The Leopard (1963)
35. (tie) A City of Sadness (1940)
35. (tie) Army of Shadows (1969)

Voted for at least a couple of today’s. NOTLD for sure.

I don't think there's a better Vietnam film, and it's also pretty great, in a roundabout way--through omission--on race. There are were at least two highly political films I thought would make the list from '68; this one did, the other, surprisingly, didn't.

35. (tie) A City of Sadness (1940) (1989)

Oops...cutting, pasting, cutting, pasting, etc. Got the screenshot right, at least.

In other screw-up news, I decided a double-post looks better for #46 than a broken link. I should have realized that that was fixable before re-posting.

The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching...Brexit and Trump. But I must proceed a pace.

Unfortunately, one of the seven I haven't seen:

34. Rome, Open City (1945)
40 points/5 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-34.jpg

I've forgotten who plays the ruthless gestapo op in it, but she is brilliant.

33. A Touch of Sin (2013)
41 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-33.jpg

30. (tie) Black Girl (1966)
42 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-30a.jpg

30. (tie) Cabaret (1972)
42 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-30b.jpg

30. (tie) The Parallax View (1974)
42 points/4 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-30c.jpg

Like the first and third; the middle, being a musical, not really for me.

The Parallax View is a blindspot for me; if anything, my recent viewing of Seven Days in May has me thinking that I may be too cynical for paranoid political thrillers (a generational thing?). I like the other two but, again, I stuck to a stricter version of "political."

29. A Face in the Crowd (1957)
44 points/6 votes

http://phildellio.tripod.com/political-29.jpg

This is the surprise I alluded to on the voting thread. Through the first half of ballots to come in, it was up in the top three or four; didn't get more than a vote in the second half, though.

I had it on my own list. Knocked me out the first time I saw it; slightly less impressive rewatching it two or three times since. McCarthy + Elvis, but it's never stopped being relevant.

(xpost) I know what you mean--that's a qualified like from me for The Parallax View. Great first scene, and the brainwashing sequence is justly famous. But a lot of it is basically a chase film.

Good to see Black Girl this high up. Cabaret as well, though neither made my top 30

I saw Black Girl for the first time a few months ago. Thought the ending with the kid was amazing--I would have used that still, but bypassed it for reasons outlined above (it came up so often on Google, I assume it's the one image associated with the film).

I'm not entirely sure how to comment on this list, but this is a list of very good films

Bolded...meant to code non-proportional text. Carry on.

Er...The Manchurian candidate...ok

Never seen it, like not on my radar at all so I'll look at it.

Thanks for the work Clemenza, a few interesting things came out of this.

And lol @ JFK. Purely voted for it because it's a very ilx thing. Just had to.

I think I would've done anyway. It's my go to film for conspiracy as a mode of politics, but it's so ridiculous. I often stop caring when it gets to court.

---

Hiroshima Mon Amour
The Battle of Chile
Narita: Peasants of the Second Fortress
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
The Battle of Algiers
A City of Sadness
Xala
A Grin Without a Cat
A Soft Note on a Sharp Scale
La Commune
Too Early/Too Late
Being Gypsy
Here and Elsewhere
Germany in Autumn
Postwar History of Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess
Far from Vietnam
Red Psalm
Z
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Le Gai Savoir
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
The Sorrow and the Pity
Death by Hanging
Come and See
Germany, Year Zero
Hitler: A film from Germany
I Am Cuba
JFK
Battleship Potemkin
The Second Awakening of Crista Klages

Top 20, Enthusiasm (3 or more votes):

1. Duck Soup (15.67 points per voter)
   The Passion of Joan of Arc (15.67)
3. Nashville (14.86)
4. All the President's Men (14.67)
5. The Rules of the Game (13.83)
6. A Grin Without a Cat (13.75)
   Taxi Driver (13.75)
8. The Sorrow and the Pity (13.20)
9. Advise and Consent (13.00)
10. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce (12.20)
11. Being There (12.00)
12. The Candidate (11.67)
13. Carlos (11.40)
14. Night of the Living Dead (11.33)
    To Be or Not to Be (11.33)
16. Z (10.8)
17. Election (10.7)
18. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (10.57)
19. Black Girl (10.5)
    Cabaret (10.5)
    The Parallax View (10.5)

So three of the top four, including #1, drop off the list.

thanks for running the poll clemenza!

my unranked ballot:

A city of sadness
A touch of sin
Army of shadows
Black panthers
Burn after reading
Chinatown
Citizen kane
Do the right thing
Election - 2005
Grand illusion
Jeanne dielman
Paths of glory
Rome open city
Sansho the bailiff
Shin godzilla
Battle of Algiers
Taxi driver
The leopard
Life and death of Colonel Blimp
The rules of the game

Sometimes I think I'm too contrarian for my own good. My ballot (ranked):

1. Gabriel Over the White House
2. The President Vanishes
3. Duck Soup
4. I Am Cuba
5. In the Loop
6. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
7. Z
8. The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
9. Dr. Strangelove
10. Intolerance
11. The Great Dictator
12. Washington Merry-Go-Round
13. No
14. Battleship Potemkin
15. A Face in the Crowd
16. Alexander Hamilton
17. Dave
18. Bob Roberts
19. The House of Rothschild
20. The Birth of a Nation

Nonetheless, thanks for running this poll. Maybe the next poll should be finance movies? Or media?

One that I forgot about and didn't nominate was Spin (1995), a doc on the media's coverage of the 1992 US election using satellite feed footage. It's easy to find on youtube if anyone's interested.

Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932) is apparently considered by some to have been plagiarized by the guy who wrote the story for Capra's Mr Smith... I don't think it holds water, bcz aside from a (much briefer) visit to the Lincoln Memorial by its hero, it checks the same boxes most of these populist ant-corruption morality plays do.

Intriguing for Lee Tracy to be playing an idealist firebrand instead of a cynic/realist. Early on he visits a Hooverville in the Anacostia Flats and berates its WWI-veteran residents for not fighting for democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacostia#Great_Depression

(This is some third-act foreshadowing.) Also the villain is a steel magnate / bootlegger with fascist aspirations.

Constance Cummings, who went on to have a distinguished career esp on the stage, is very good as the more solidly grounded (and amoral) Jean Arthur figure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RucCOCy8cU

Man, this list is surprising in a lot of ways: https://newrepublic.com/article/173376/100-political-films-new-republic-list

Biggest duds on the list in a quick glance are probably The Lives of Others, Syriana, American Sniper ... and obv The Birth of a Nation. (High and Low seems a bit of a stretch to me, but hey.)

Oh, and Triumph of the Will ... understandable why it and Nation are in there, but doesn't make it any easier to see them listed alongside so many genuinely great films

You know who weighs in: https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/06/the-ten-best-political-movies-of-all-time/

(As usual, he's on his comparatively best behavior when it comes to canonization.)

Just learned of this from a friend tonight:

https://newrepublic.com/article/173376/100-political-films-new-republic-list

Hoberman writes some kind of introductory essay. Looking at their Top 10 vs. this poll's, there is overlap of five films. Their title is "most significant," which ought to give them some cover for two of their Top 10.

Geez, as hard as this is to believe, I missed the posts above mine.

Armond White has Health in his Top 10? That's truly eccentric...makes me want to finally see it.

Some things I like seeing on the New Republic list:

81. The Times of Harvey Milk
78. Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day
69. The Best Man
67. Point of Order!
56. The Fog of War
39. Hearts and Minds
10. A Face in the Crowd

At least a couple of those are surprises.

Most glaring omission (unless I missed him): Wiseman. So many to choose from--Welfare for me.

Love, love, love A Grin Without a Cat making the list, along with all the Third Cinema titles. From a glance, it almost seems like the roster of voters is, more or less, the National Society of Film Critics?

I was glad to see that too, and voted for it here. I haven't yet read Hoberman's long essay, but skimming I saw he mentioned Tanner '88, which I think should have been on there (and which I have no idea why I omitted it from my own list).

Nice to see two films by Jia on that list.
It looks like Robert Kramer's Ice only received one vote in this poll, it might be top of my own list.

Nice to see two films by Jia on that list

This. It was disheartening to see him so out of favor in that December 2022 poll I've written about too much here

Another surprising omission: no Jordan Peele. (One or both of the first two, I'd say, though I know others like the third.)

"Love, love, love A Grin Without a Cat"

Hate, hate, hate the low ranking.

That top ten is also not good. Though that's a great No1.

#81, showing the White Night Riots and the candlelight march, The Times of Harvey Milk is an amazing film with a really moving ending. I think everyone should watch it.

TNR’s link to the NYT article in 1985 shows how conservative and bigoted the NYT was at the time.

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/22/us/dan-white-killer-of-san-francisco-mayor-a-suicide.html

They refused to use the word ‘gay’ which was the term everyone had already long accepted at that time. Their pigheadedness went on for years after that and eventually became ridiculous and a topic of conversation among my friends. They kept referring to gay people as ‘homosexuals’, a term that had long since been seen as derogatory and that had been used in many negative contexts.

Not sure where to put this...Thought September 5 was good. Don't know that I'd see it a second time, but it never lags and the performances are good all around. Had forgotten all about Peter Sarsgaard; thought maybe he got hijacked by some Marvel franchise, but no, just doesn't seem to do a lot of high-profile films anymore. Leonie Benesch, who I didn't recognize from The Teacher's Lounge is excellent. So glad it actually documents the story the world saw; my memories are dim (I was 10), so I was anxious to see Munich when it came out and was very disappointed. (Tried one or two more times and still found it tedious.) This is the film I wanted that to be.

i know its impossible to argue against anything being political but the result of this poll is just a random enough list of movies

I wasn't around for the poll but that was my thought on seeing this thread too.

im sure they are good movies but i really love political thrillers etc so it was disappointing

That was discussed lots during the voting thread; not much different in my mind than what counts as a comedy or a horror film--subjectivity will enter into it.

Er...The Manchurian candidate...ok

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 25 July 2019 bookmarkflaglink

I still haven't seen it.

i'm normally one to moan about people who just have to show you what a freethinker they are for some reason but tbf i think most of this list is pretty solidly either "about" politics or uses the political world as mise en scène. i'd say that the latter category aren't necessarily political films but hey at least they're ballpark

a few choices are the usual nonsense tho

I'm biased, but I think the mix is great. There are a few political thrillers, including #1. There's films about campaigning and films about governing. There are comedies and documentaries and art films. There's a few I haven't seen, but I don't know that there's a bad film on there, or a film where I can't at least see the argument that it's political.

I'd say Manchurian Candidate is pretty clearly in the "mise en scène" category tbh, but I don't mind that it fits the bill. It doesn't really have anything to say about politics, any more than e.g. The West Wing lol

That one's solidly political to me, because there's the McCarthy angle, and it captures the before-the-storm right-wing hysteria of the time bubbling under the surface (Birchers and Rockwell and Goldwater). Weirdly, I count one of my favourite films on the list, Taxi Driver, as one of the more specious ones. It's got assassination and a Vietnam vet (maybe) and an actual politician spouting drivel, but it's about one guy's psychosis, and the political stuff is there more to prop up the story.

I agree that Taxi Driver is also the wrong side of an edge case, yeah. Doesn't mean I think those aren't both good films, and I totally buy TMC as fitting the brief

id say TMC encapsulates the brief!

Manchurian Candidate does have something to say about politics, NV, it's just not stuff either you (from what I know) or I would take seriously - it's a liberal anti-McCarthy film whose take on why mccarthyism is bad boils down to "it's what the commies want us to do!", which you can then charitably take as a metaphor, loss of freedom of speech renders the West no better than the Eastern bloc etc etc

It's a political film for sure, just not my politics.

not much different in my mind than what counts as a comedy or a horror film--subjectivity will enter into it.

Different in my mind because you can easily make the case that all films are political, but can you make the case that all films are horror or comedies? You might, but it doesn't happen much in polls.

Tbf Daniel I get what you're saying and was thinking about "fairy tales of the hegemon" and whether they're political. Not having watched TMC for a good long while doesn't help my judgement either. What I'm getting at - and I'm absolutely gonna be wrong about some of my thinks - is whether politics is the MacGuffin or the meat

How is the remake?

you can easily make the case that all films are political, but can you make the case that all films are horror or comedies?

True, but some of the same fluidity is there. For me, Rosemary's Baby is also a great comedy and a great political film.

I'm finished work for the school year at the end of this month and would like to do another film poll starting in mid-April. Three ideas: 1) the media (newspapers/TV primarily, but maybe the internet too); 2) teaching/schools; 3) courtroom/legal profession. My preference would be films about media.

xp its not bad?

but iirc its very much _not_ political its really a whodunnit conspiracy

xp lump em all into procedurals but the procedure _must be_ the meat imo

I'd say Rosemary's Baby is political because it's about conspiracy and paranoia and cultish leaders, and also because it has the best line to come out of any film on 1968: "This is not a dream, this is really happening." But I understand why it might be completely apolitical to someone else.

i would welcome a movie by movie run through!

rosemarys baby is not a political movie

Well, you can't state opinions as facts--just doesn't work. Rosemary's Baby is a movie--fact. Rosemary's Baby was directed by Roman Polanski--fact. Rosemary's Baby is not a political movie--opinion.

Think I'm going to poll my three preferences.

i can state anything i like bucko you can discern yerself whats a fact its 2025

but it is also a fact that Rosemary's baby isnt a political film and j'accuse

It's a fact that my opinion is you're wrong.

i can respect that