Subgenre Sampler
Politics: 634 Films to Buy & Rent
Trial at Nuremberg (1947)
- Dir. Jack Kaufman
- Actual footage of the historic war crime hearings in which Goering, Hess and 19 other SS Nazi leaders would be brought to trial over 217 days at the…
Years Between, The (1946)
- Dir. Compton Bennett
Feat. Michael Redgrave, Valerie Hobson, Dame Flora Robson
- Michael Redgrave plays a British MI6 officer who returns home after working for the French Resistance to find that his wife, who had presumed him…
Native Land (1942)
- Dir. Leo Hurwitz, Paul Strand
- Impassioned and authentic, this landmark film call for social revolution in Depression–era America blends vivid re–anactments with actual…
Meet John Doe (1941)
- Dir. Frank Capra
Feat. Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan…
- Always partial to a ripe political parable, dir. Capra has Barbara Stanwyck leading hickster Gary Cooper around by the nose on a national goodwill…
Great Dictator, The (1940)
- Dir. Charles Chaplin
Feat. Charles Chaplin
- Chaplin's brave subversive satire in which he inhabits dual roles – dictator Adenoid Hynkle and a Jewish barber – for his damning…
Great McGinty, The (1940)
- Dir. Preston Sturges
Feat. Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff, William Demarest…
- The first film with Preston Sturges both scripting and directing, this dryly wacky political satire sees cynical bum Donlevy rise to the heights of…
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
- Dir. Frank Capra
Feat. James Stewart, Jean Arthur
- Another brilliant comic parable from Frank Capra, in the wake of MR. DEEDS. The endearing Jimmy Stewart plays a young idealist who discovers the…
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
- Dir. John Ford
Feat. Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver…
- A fresh–faced Henry Fonda gives credence to the formative years of Abraham Lincoln, seen here as a country boy–turned–lawyer…
Marseillaise, La (1938)
- Dir. Jean Renoir
Feat. Pierre Renoir, Lisa Delamare, Leon Larive…
- Renoir's classic depicts events leading up to the French revolution in the 18th Century, electing to extract history from the heart of the common…
Triumph of the Will (1935)
- Dir. Leni Riefenstahl
- The famous official document of the Nazi rally at Nuremberg, 1934, shot in stunning geometric compositions. This manages to stagger the senses, while…