Movies have long been about political misgivings. Recent films have sought to capture the divisions playing out in the run-up to this year’s election, but for those whose hair is on fire at the thought of another Donald Trump presidency, the most powerful storylines may be found in the cinema classics – disturbingly prescient in different respects – of the 20th century.

Certainly, the modern era has given us many films that address political unease. Don’t look for, Netflix’s dark satire about an asteroid heading toward a collision with Earth reflects the head-in-the-sand approach to climate change, and Civil war worked well enough as a thriller, without explaining stubborn details like how Texas and California could end up on the same side in anything.

A series of more revealing, but still relevant, films emerged during the Cold War, including projects dealing with the powerful influence of a media personality on his audience, a Soviet sleeper agent infiltrating politics presidential election, of a ruthless demagogue seeking the White House, of gullible media. turning a simple-minded man into a political powerhouse, and the dangers associated with giving nuclear codes access to the wrong person.

These films predicted threats from bad people – either malicious or simply ill-equipped – rising to power, informed by the specter of McCarthyism and Senator Joe McCarthy’s tactic of labeling his opponents as communists, which remained close in the rearview mirror. Although set well before our social media-drenched times, they contain dialogue that resonates in today’s news cycle, while identifying media (and by extension, public) blind spots that persist in this day, including the fight to separate public images. and what we see on television of the individuals behind them.

Here’s a look at seven films that haven’t aged as badly as we might have hoped. Unless otherwise noted, they’re all available to rent through Amazon’s Prime Video, assuming you actually possess the courage and fortitude to bravely watch them between now and Election Day.

Face in the crowdFrom the Everett Collection.

A face in the crowd (1957)

Before he became a brilliant television star, Andy Griffith made a surprisingly effective villain in director Elia Kazan’s well-ahead-of-its-time cautionary tale about a popular television personality, Lonesome Rhodes, getting drunk on power given to him by the media. Once described as “a film that predicted the rise of Donald Trump” by the Washington Post, the film shows Rhodes calling his fans “sheep,” singing, “They’re mine. I own them. They think like me. Only, they’re stupider than me, so I have to think for them. The similarity to Trump’s boast that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters” is more astonishing in the days of black-and-white television’s infancy .

The Manchurian CandidateFrom the Everett Collection.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

A Soviet-controlled senator makes a bid for the White House in this unsettling thriller starring Frank Sinatra, who has acquired a kind of mythic status given an assassination subplot that precedes the death of John F. Kennedy. A deeper strand, however, concerns a communist project to dismantle the United States from within and that memorable observation about the aforementioned candidate from another senator from his wife (the dazzling Angela Lansbury), who is the true power behind the throne: “I despise John. Iselin, and all that Iselin-ism represents today. I think that if John Iselin were a paid Soviet agent, he could not do more harm to this country than he is doing now.”

The best manFrom the Everett Collection.

The best man (1964)

Henry Fonda confronts a ruthless demagogue who harasses communists (Cliff Robertson) for his party’s presidential nomination in this film adapted by author Gore Vidal from his play of the same name. Although the contestants grapple with possible sex scandals and the revelation of a nervous breakdown, the most enduring exchange concerns Fonda’s principled and inherently decent character, delivering this devastating assessment of her rival: “You n ‘have no sense of responsibility towards anyone or anything. And that’s a tragedy in a man, and it’s a disaster in a president. »

Be thereFrom the United Artists/Everett collection.

Be there (1979)

Peter Sellers should have been knighted solely for his portrayal of Chance, a simple-minded gardener who falls into the corridors of power, in this provocative but very funny satire. This movie has many memorable lines, but it’s hard to top the black woman who raised Chance saying, as she watches him be treated like a financial guru on TV while spouting “gibberish,” that “all you have to be is white in America.” to get what you want.

The dead zone.From the Paramount/Everett collection.

The dead zone (1983)

Christopher Walken starred as a man who develops the ability to see the future of everyone he touches in this low-key film. Stephen King adaptation – one of the best based on his works. The plot is based on the character’s meeting with a future president (Martin Sheen) who sees the outbreak of nuclear war as his “destiny”, raising the question of what he can do to stop it.

IdiocracyFrom the Fox/Everett collection of the 20th century.

Idiocracy (2006)

A failure upon its release, this science fiction comedy has become cult with its confusion about the possible consequences of anti-intellectualism and wanton consumerism. An ordinary guy Luke Wilson wakes up 500 years in the future to discover that, thanks to humanity’s collective descent, he is now the smartest person in the world and the inevitable choice to become its leader.

Leave the world behindCourtesy of Netflix.

Leave the world behind (2023)

Arguably the best of a wave of modern apocalyptic thrillers, this film directed by Mister RobotIt is Sam Esmail focuses on two families isolated from the world facing a massive power and communications outage. Julia Roberts And Mahershala Ali star in a film produced by Higher Ground Productions (Barack And Michelle Obama(production company) which owes a debt to the paranoid thrillers of the 1970s while adding the 21st century problem of wondering if an adversary wanted to tear America apart without firing a single shot, could he do it simply by cutting off access to the Internet, spreading misinformation and watching the chaos that ensues?

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