10 Greatest Movies About American Politics

For a film dealing with an event as grubby as Watergate, All The President’s Men has incredible pedigree. Written by the great William Goldman, it stars Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford as Carl Bernstein and Robert Woodward, on whose non-fiction book the story was based.

It’s a mature thriller of the type that peaked in the 1970s, and that we don’t see too often these days. It moves at a deliberate pace, and ekes its drama from the process of putting a case together. Woodward and Bernstein start with a minor assignment from The Washington Post, and tease out a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top.

Director Alan J Pakula approaches the subject with an appropriate grittiness and seriousness; it was released just four years after the scandal broke, and the first hand sources and lack of distance heighten the realism, making this a genuine historical document of note (even if some liberties were, naturally, taken).

Hoffman and Redford are the topline stars, but this is a real ensemble piece, with Jason Robard and Hal Holbrook as the Post’s editor and whistleblower “Deep Throat” particularly noteworthy. Brilliantly made, informative, and most of all entertaining.