2. Election
Few film directors understand just how people tick quite as well as Alexander Payne - his keen insights and ability to transfer them to engaging works of fictional cinema have meant that he's one of the few directors working today who has been granted final cut rights by the studios. For Election, Payne opted to expose the many absurdities of the political process by showing it through the microcosm of a class president election, with Reese Witherspoon playing Tracey Flick, the over-achieving and ruthless student determined to win at all costs, much to the chagrin of her teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick). Witherspoon and Broderick have rarely been better, the latter coming across as kind of an older version of Ferris Bueller, had his life been turned upside down and all the spirit and enthusiasm battered out of him. Election is a real gem and one of the sharpest political satires to have emerged from American cinema.