TIME’s list of top political films

posted by Patrick Crowley on October 30, 2006 at 6:53 am

Just in time for this week’s elections, TIME’s film critic Richard Corliss has put together a list of the seven top political films of all time.

Here’s the first film on the list:

CITIZEN KANE ORSON WELLES, 1941

Best film ever? Maybe. But beyond the epiphanies of film form and camera work, Kane offers an acute view of American politics that applies today as much as it did then. Like Silvio Berlusconi and Michael Bloomberg, Kane (Welles) is a media magnate who runs for office. Like Mark Foley, he is caught in a sexual scandal just before the election. The brilliant script by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles is about a powerful man’s need to be loved by the millions of people whose lives he dominates. And when they jilt him, he rationalizes the rejection by spinning tales of conspiracy. His newspaper runs the headline FRAUD AT POLLS.

Find out about the other films he picked and then comment with your favorites!