Top Political Movies, Part 3

Spy Game (2001) / Director: Tony Scott / Stars: Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack

Retiring CIA agent Nathan Muir (Redford) stymies Agency politics to free protégé Tom Bishop (Pitt) from Chinese captors.

The Ides of March (2011) / Director: George Clooney / Stars: Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman

Beware the idealistic, and brilliantly resourceful, staffer who feels betrayed by dirty politics and heroes with clay feet…

The Ghost Writer (2010) / Director: Roman Polanski / Stars: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams

A ghostwriter (McGregor) hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister (Brosnan) uncovers dangerous secrets.

Being There (1979) / Director: Hal Ashby / Stars: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas

A TV-loving, mentally disabled gardener (Sellers) makes banal statements that are mistaken for profundity, propelling him to high-level influence among the powerful in self-absorbed, self-delusional Washington D.C. Based on the novel by Jerzy Kosinski.

Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) / Director: Mike Nichols / Stars: Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts

A dramedy based on the semi-covert efforts of a Texas congressman (Hanks) to arm Afghan rebels in their war with the Soviets. (These would be the same rebels that the America would later abandon and who would become the U.S.-hating Taliban, but that’s a different comic tragedy.)