PS 101
McQuide
Extra Credit Exercise: Politics in the Movies
Here is your chance to earn some extra credit doing something fun—watching a political movie! Many
movies have been made by Hollywood involving real or fictional political events. Some are realistic
portrayals of real life politics and others are Hollywood fictions.
All you need to do is watch one of the movies from the list, enjoy the movie (Enjoy with popcorn and
other classmates, friends or family!), and write a movie review. To gain the full 5 points of credit, you
must post it on the Discussion Board on Blackboard under “Movie Reviews” for your me and your
classmates to view (and decide if they would like to see it too!).
You may repeat this extra credit, but you must turn in a separate review and post a separate review for
each movie you view. Each movie review is worth 5 points; you may do a total of four reviews for 20
points of extra credit.
Your movie review should contain all of the following: (the review need not be more than 1-2 pages
single spaced):
1.
2.
3.
4.
Title of the movie, year, main actors
Your rating of the movie (1-5 stars, 1 being awful, 3 being average and 5 being outstanding).
A brief summary of the movie plot
How is this movie realistic or not realistic (explain why in relation to what you have learned in
this class)
5. How did this movie relate to concepts you have learned about in this class? Which concepts did
this movie relate to? Was the portrayal accurate?
6. Why you rated the movie the way you did (i.e. why did you think it was terrible or outstanding).
What was good or bad about the movie? Would you recommend your classmates to see this
movie too?
7. Discuss the movie with another student, friend or relative. Were your views of the movie similar
or different? Why?
Political Movie List
Congress:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Presidency:
My Fellow Americans (1996)
The American President (1995)
Thirteen Days (about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis) (2000)
All the President’s Men (about Watergate) (1976)
Nixon (1995)
Dave (1993)
Primary Colors (1998)
Air Force One (1997)
Deterrence (1999)
Sum of All Fears (2002)
Black Hawk Down (2002) [while this is not a movie directly about the Presidency, it gives you a really
good picture of why President Clinton’s approval ratings fell dramatically after his failed Somalia policy]
Fahrenheit 911 (2004)
Head of State (2003)
Man of the Year (2006)
US Supreme Court:
Amistad (about a slave trading case from the 1840’s) (1998)
Separate But Equal (about the 1954 Brown case) (1991)
Gideon’s Trumpet (about the 1963 Gideon v. Wainwright case) (1980)
Courts:
A Civil Action (1998)
Erin Brockovich (2000)
Double Jeopardy (1999)
Hurricane (1999)
Social Network (2010)
Interest Groups
Casino Jack (2010) [this is a movie about Jack Abramoff, a convicted lobbyist, who was involved in
lobbying scandals in the early 2000’s]
Thank You for Smoking (2005)
Public Policy
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
The Life of David Gale (2003)
Dead Man Walking (1995)
Crash (2005)
The Insider (1999)
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)—movie about the environment and global warming by Al Gore
V for Vendetta (2006)
Super Size Me (2004)
Iron Jawed Angels (2004)—movie about the women’s rights movement
The Insider (1999)
Waiting for Superman (2010)
National Security
World Trade Center (2006)
United 93 (2006)
International Relations
Hotel Rwanda (2005)
Note: This is not an exhaustive list by any means! If you know of any political movies that could be added to this
list, please give me the movie titles and year of release so I can add them to this list 