10 Bonkers Movies About Elections to Help You Survive the Election

It’s an election year, which can mean only one thing: Everyone is miserable. Whether you’re stressed about the candidates, sick of being forced to talk about politics, or tired of having your social media swamped by annoying opinions, elections are draining AF.

In honor of this most wretched of seasons, I considered putting together a list of election movies so twisted and filled with corruption they might make dejected voters feel more motivated to hit the ballot box. That list would’ve been full of manly movies about men doing man things, like The Best Man, All the King’s Men, All the President’s Men and maybe even The Manchurian Candidate. Then I realized that what we probably need right now is a reminder of just how absurd the political process can be at every single level, so we might as well get a laugh out of all this.

Here then, are 10 movies featuring the wackiest election-related content ever committed to film.

‘Shampoo’ (1975)

Shampoo is a movie Warren Beatty co-wrote that enabled him to put his mouth and body on the mouths and bodies of Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Carrie Fisher and Lee Grant. Beatty — his character’s name is George, not that it matters — and his springy, helmet-shaped head of hair ride around Los Angeles on a motorcycle doing haircuts and also ladies.

After an hour of (remarkably joyless) romping and bank meetings (not even joking), the action moves to … a Nixon reelection party? That all of these sexy women also happen to be attending. And at which, out of the clear blue sky, a sex act takes place underneath a packed dinner table. This movie is jarring on many levels, but it’ll also help you forget all about Harris vs. Trump. Instead, you’ll just spend the next few days wondering what the hell they put in Beatty’s hair to turn it into this gravity-defying pouf for the ages.

‘Shampoo’ is available to rent on Apple TV+ and Prime Video.

‘Dave’ (1993)

Dave is the kind of late-20th century movie that absolutely stopped being made because our tolerance for adults being cutesy went way down after 9/11. (Terrorists ruin literally everything.)

Dave is about a jovial, sandwich-obsessed man named Dave (Kevin Kline) who bears an incredible resemblance to President William Mitchell (also Kevin Kline, naturally) so is hired to act as his double when the real president is off having sex with Laura Linney. (Not worth talking about, honestly.) When the leader of the free world has a massive stroke, rather than passing his job to the vice president, the Secret Service hands the reins to the entirely unelected Dave. And — wouldn’t ya know it? — Dave ends up being a better president than the president. In other words, this movie is utterly preposterous on every conceivable level. Sigourney Weaver, though.

‘Dave’ is available to rent on Amazon Video, Apple TV+ and Fandango.

‘Head of State’ (2003)

Head of State is a movie that opens with Nate Dogg singing in front of Mount Rushmore and just gets more entertaining from there. The script is packed with zingers, Chris Rock is at his very best and the cast is near-perfect. (Tracy Morgan’s role amounts to selling meat from a shoulder bag in a gas station, and it’s still perfect.)

The plot goes like this: After the presidential and vice presidential nominees are killed in a crash, their party is resigned to losing the election. With an eye on building support with minority voters for future ballot battles, Rock’s Mays Gilliam — an alderman from a crime-ridden D.C. neighborhood — is chosen as the nominee. (His rival’s biggest selling point is being Sharon Stone’s cousin, a running joke that never gets old.) Predictably, as soon as Gilliam stops following professional guidance and starts being himself, his popularity increases. You all know where this is going, but embracing this escapist nonsense can and will make you feel better about the world. (As will Nate Dogg.)

‘Head of State’ is streaming on Paramount Plus, Hoopla and Tubi.

‘The Dead Zone’ (1983)

One night, school teacher Johnny (a perfectly creepy Christopher Walken) is in a horrible car accident and winds up in a coma. When he wakes up five years later, he has the ability to see future disasters just by touching people. He knows when a nurse’s house is on fire! He knows when a student he’s tutoring is in imminent danger! He’s basically the worst dinner guest in history!

When he’s not working with cops to try and catch a serial killer, Johnny shakes the hand of Senator Greg Stillson (a perfectly smarmy Martin Sheen) and sees the apocalyptic disaster that will befall mankind if Stillson gets elected president. Johnny is then tasked with, oh, I don’t know, just trying to change the entire course of fated history.

David Cronenberg’s adaptation of this Stephen King novel is quantifiably nutty for sure, but still totally compulsive viewing. It’s also a handy reminder to try and not vote for a future autocrat.

‘The Dead Zone’ is available to stream on Paramount Plus, Prime Video and MGM.

‘Napoleon Dynamite’ (2004)

Ah, yes. The reason every third person at the mall was wearing a Vote for Pedro shirt in 2005. (Thanks for everything, Hot Topic.)

I realize this movie is as much about tetherball, ligers and LaFawnduh as it is about Pedro’s campaign to get elected class president, but Napoleon Dynamite has the power to transport us to another time. A time of peak MySpace usage. A time of youthful optimism in the face of impossible odds. A time when even misfits had a shot at presidential success, and doing dance routines to Jamiroquai in public was a thing to be celebrated. Reach for the stars, indeed.

‘Napoleon Dynamite’ is streaming on Hulu.

‘Bulworth’ (1998)

Bulworth: Come for Halle Berry being the coolest, most beautiful woman on Earth. Stay for Warren Beatty as Senator Bulworth, a white Democratic senator having a very public nervous breakdown that makes him say racially inappropriate things in public, drink from flasks on television and suddenly care about racist cops. Oh also, by the by, he’s hired someone to assassinate him.

This movie is completely bonkers from start to finish, not least because we’re supposed to believe that Berry’s character is romantically interested in Bulworth. But — aside from some almost intolerable scenes of Beatty rapping — Bulworth is also full of pertinent commentary about systemic racism, the American political system, as well as late-stage capitalism.

‘Bulworth’ is available to rent on Amazon Video, Apple TV+ and Fandango.

‘Black Sheep’ (1996)

Black Sheep is unapologetically as dumb as a bag of rocks. The plot is the thinnest possible — Steve (David Spade) is hired to keep Mike (Chris Farley) out of the public eye while Mike’s brother Al campaigns to become governor. Steve fails, hijinks ensue. Events include but are not limited to: getting into altercations with a violent hermit played by Gary Busey, boulders almost destroying buildings and a plane taking off with a man attached to the outside of it. Oh, and Mudhoney shows up at one point, which feels super random but is probably the result of Black Sheep being directed by Penelope Spheeris. (Yes, old punks, the same Penelope Spheeris who made Suburbia and The Decline of Western Civilization.)

If you love Farley and Spade together, consider this a wonderful distraction for an election year. If you hate that whole slapstick vs. straight man combo, feel free to hate-watch it while enjoying Gary Busey and only Gary Busey.

‘Black Sheep’ is streaming on Pluto TV and Paramount Plus.

‘Election’ (1999)

Behind every sweater vest and perfectly brushed ponytail is a Type A sociopath whose ambition knows no limits and whose moral compass is lying in a dumpster somewhere in the rearview.

Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick embodies all of these qualities in Election — an absolutely unhinged movie about a high school election, a couple of morally shady teachers, one good-natured twit who’s not cut out for politics and an anarchic lesbian with several vendettas. By the end of it, you will be driven half mad by Flick’s underhanded exploits and the creepy secret desires of teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick). Either way, you won’t be thinking about the real-life election going on in our midst, so yay!

‘Election’ is available to rent on Amazon Video, Apple TV+ and Fandango.

‘Dick’ (1999)

Dick is what happens directly after movies like Clueless (1995) and Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997) do well. In this quintessentially ’90s lark, 15-year-old BFFs Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene (Michelle Williams) unwittingly find themselves right on the edge of the Watergate scandal.

It’s full of very fun fashion, lessons about not underestimating girls and Bruce McCulloch from The Kids in the Hall doing a supremely entertaining impersonation of legendary Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein. Dick is incredibly silly, but unabashedly so. Roll with the fun of it all and find your brains delightfully turned off.

‘Dick’ is available to rent on Amazon Video and Apple TV+.

‘Betty Boop for President’ (1932)

Let’s close this out with a six-minute fever dream of a cartoon that emerged almost a century ago but depicted a woman becoming president. How does Betty Boop pull off this landmark feat? By offering everyone kisses and free ice cream, of course! Also, by inventing umbrellas huge enough to cover entire cities, putting lipstick on the incarcerated, and morphing her own visage into the cigar-smoking man-faces of two prominent politicians of the era, Herbert Hoover and Al Smith.

I don’t know how many drugs people were on in the 1930s, but if Betty Boop for President is any indicator, the answer is a lot. Like, a lot, a lot.

‘Betty Boop for President’ is streaming on YouTube.