There are probably dozens of lists out there about the "Greatest Election Movies" or "Greatest Politics Movies" of all time. Those lists are boring and unchallenging ("Ooh, you think Election is a great election movie? GOOD JOB, GOOD EFFORT"). So instead of another dull list about election movies featuring The Candidate, I've compiled a list of five films that are extremely tangentially about elections—films in which elections may not even take place, yet drive the action of the movie in a significant way or show us something interesting about the nature of politics and American society.
So, without further ado, allow me to offer you Five Great Films that Are (Very Tangentially!) About Elections:
1. Ghostbusters
Everyone knows that Ghostbusters is a great libertarian film, virtually the only one to feature bureaucrats as villains. (The EPA and university administrators really are the worst, aren't they?) But it's also a great film about the venality of local politicians. Consider: New York is literally descending into a nightmarish state, filled with ghouls and spooks and phantoms. Yet the mayor is completely and utterly paralyzed. Until! Venkman reminds him that he could win the gratitude of millions of voters by letting the Ghostbusters just do their job.
In other words, the only thing that saved New York City from Gozer was a politician being reminded that he had to face the voters. Elections are a powerful thing.
2. Jaws
If Ghostbusters is a movie about the positive power of elections, Jaws highlights the dangers of our system. Specifically, the danger of letting businesses capture the political process. Remember, the deadly shark attacks are only allowed to continue because the mayor of the town bows to pressure from local businessmen who don't want to lose out on valuable summer beach dates. He's worried about his electoral fate—which is tied to their support, fiscal and otherwise—not the fate of the people who travel to his little hamlet. For shame, Mayor Vaughn! For shame.
3. Back to the Future
In addition to being a movie about a family of twerps perverting the space-time continuum in order to transform themselves from zeroes into heroes, Back to the Future is also a movie about the story of racial progress in America—and how the situation of minorities only gets improved thanks to plucky white teens. Remember when Marty goes into the past? And he runs into Goldie Wilson, the mayor in his day? What's Goldie doing? Working as a bus boy in a soda shop. But then Marty plants the seed in his head that he'll be mayor one day and Bam! Goldie gets elected mayor, aiding the cause of racial progress in a riven American.
I imagine if this movie were released today, we'd be treated to 28 separate think pieces about the problematic nature of this subplot at Salon. That alone kind of makes me wish they'd remake it.
4. Taxi Driver
Of all the movies on this list, Scorsese's masterpiece is the only one to have a real life impact on electoral politics. John Hinckley's near-assassination of Ronald Reagan reverberated throughout the decades, indirectly leading to the creation of the Brady Campaign, which disastrously pushed the Democratic Party to the left on gun issues for decades.
5. A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange is primarily about the relationship between good, evil, and free will. Can one truly be good if one cannot choose to be good? Is there a level of evil with which we should not be forced to live, free will be damned? But it's also about the way politicians are willing to use such concepts to consolidate power, the way in which they're willing to violate their own values in order to win elections and maintain control, their complete and utter disregard for ideology when it comes to staying in office. The whole last act of the film focuses on two British political parties vying for power, Alex (Malcolm McDowell) serving as little more than a pawn in their struggle.