Political biography movies about ernest

With the Democratic National Convention getting underway Monday, and election season kicking into high gear, what better time to dig into the best Hollywood narrative treatments of American politics, past and present?

Conversations with my enterprising editor encouraged me to think not just in terms of the workings of government, but also of issues that promise to figure significantly as we crawl toward voting day in November and the different ways films can embody a desire to create change.

Some of the choices listed below make no explicit nods toward politics per se, but they grapple with subjects that are inherently political, whether the topic is abortion, race, marriage equality, immigration or surveillance.

Thinking along those lines, I was sad not to find a spot for John Ford’s timeless Steinbeck adaptation The Grapes of Wrath, about a family who lose their Oklahoma farmland and join the Great Depression mig