Wag the Dog to All the President's Men: 10 of the best films presidential elections

The tension is building in the race for the White House – and that tension runs through Hollywood's most gripping political dramas, comedies and documentaries.

The current campaign may be the most tumultuous in US history, with a late-in-the-day candidate change and two dramatic debates, along with the possibility (again) of the first woman president. But the race for the White House has intrigued film-makers for decades, with some startling results. Even Frank Capra, the goody-two-shoes of US cinema, cast a sceptical eye on the process. Some films are thinly veiled fictions, others prescient fantasies, but all find themes that go the heart of US democracy and ideals. Here are some of the best presidential election movies, including an under-appreciated gem from Mike Nichols and Elaine May, another starring Ryan Gosling and George Clooney, and a West Wing warm-up from Aaron Sorkin. 

One of Mike Nichols' best and least-known films, with a glittering screenplay by Elaine May, this satire follows a not-at-all veiled fictional version of Bill Clinton through the primaries on his way to the White House. John Travolta is unlikely but brilliant as Jack Stanton, a Southern governor who can charm his way out of anything. Travolta captures the Clinton charisma as well as the empathetic "I feel your pain" glances without becoming a caricature. Emma Thompson plays his wife, Susan, a Hillary before she had a political career of her own, but whose instincts are as sharp as anyone's. Based on the 1996 novel by the journalist Joe Klein (originally published as Anonymous), the film goes behind the scenes as the campaign tries to dispel rumours – some true, some not – of Stanton's womanising. Adrian Lester, as an idealistic young campaign manager, embodies the theme of lost innocence that runs through so many movies elections. The film is also very funny even as it raises one of the fundamental questions of 20th and 21st-Century politics: does a little spin and subterfuge matter if it helps put someone who'll do the best for the US in the White House? Even Lincoln stretched the truth, Stanton argues.

One of the great films of our time, All the President's Men is of course front-and-centre about journalism. But take another look as you'll see how much it is also about dirty campaign politics. When Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, as Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, ­track down the truth behind the Watergate break-in and the cover-up that led to Richard Nixon's resignation, much of their investigation leads them to CREEP, the all-too-accurate acronym for the Republicans' Committee to Re-elect the President. That committee's bungled attempt to steal information from the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building was just the first clue to exposing all sorts of other campaign creepiness from illegal payments to character assassination. Still suspenseful every time you watch it, the film beautifully weaves together many threads about the US. The corruption behind Nixon's 1972 campaign is one of its themes with enduring, cautionary impact.

This satire from the 1990s seems timelier than ever now, in the age of artificial intelligence and disputes about what constitutes a fact. Robert De Niro is at his droll best as Conrad Brean, a campaign consultant called in when a story about the president's affair with a young woman breaks two weeks before the election that will keep him in office. (One jaw-dropping aside: the film was released just a month before the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke. The Clinton presidency really was a gift to film-makers.) To save the campaign, Brean recruits a Hollywood producer – hilariously played as the ultimate narcissist by Dustin Hoffman – to film evidence of a war with Albania that doesn't really exist. They even find a war hero who wasn't a hero and make him a celebrity. The press buys it, the public buys it and who's to say what's real anymore? The film's portrayal of how politics and Hollywood merge is taken for granted now, but David Mamet's biting screenplay and Barry Levinson's sharp direction hold up perfectly.

DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus's groundbreaking documentary is based on amazing behind-the-scenes access to Bill Clinton's first run for president in 1992, and stands as the real-life version of Primary Colors. Clinton appears only briefly. The central characters are the strategist James Carville and the communications director, a baby-faced George Stephanopoulos, long before he became a news anchor. A sign on the wall of the campaign office gives us Carville's now famous line about what mattered most: "The Economy. Stupid." Stephanopoulos is seen putting out media fires, including a phone conversation in which he tells a reporter working on a rumour about Clinton that he will look foolish and have no future if he writes that lie, almost making that response sound like a fact not a threat. (That particular rumour has, in fact, long since been discredited.) The film is exhilarating as it captures all the youthful energy of a campaign running on hope and adrenaline.

Gore Vidal's screenplay is firmly in the JFK era, but its take on the machinations to choose a presidential nominee at a split convention still goes to the heart of many issues in campaign politics, including money, promises made in exchange for and skeletons in the candidates' closets. Henry Fonda plays William Russell, the experienced secretary of state, fondly called an egghead by one of his ers. "Do you think people mistrust intellectuals like you in politics">window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'alternating-thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article', placement: 'Below Article', target_type: 'mix' });