With cinema schedules bearing the brunt of a blockbuster backlog – Wonder Woman, Pirates 5, and Baywatch to name but a few – there is little newness on offer this week. But it is election week (eek!), and for fear of passing up the opportunity to tenuously link this feature to real-world events, I thought it would be worth having a look at some of cinema’s best political films.

Which movies are vote winners? Whose stump speech sticks out among the crowd? Some share political ideals, some deliver a specific message. Some are overtly political, and some more subtle in nature. Here are 10 of the best.

The Ides of March explores every dirty nook and cranny of political campaigning, seeing Ryan Gosling take on the role of junior senator and George Clooney his office-chasing upper. Clooney also directs the piece, which relies as much on great performances as it does a polished screenplay. Unsurprising, given the presence of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Marisa Tomei.

Performances and screenplay matter even more in Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard’s take on the post-Watergate interviews between journalist David Frost and disgraced ex-President Richard Nixon. Michael Sheen stars as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon, each capturing the magnitude of his respective personality and their collective predicament.

Journalism is also on the agenda in Good Night, and Good Luck. Another Clooney-directed feature, this black-and-white ode to smoky newsroom reporting depicts the murky air of 1950s America and its relationship between media and state. David Strathairn captures the defiant poise of TV and radio anchor Edward R. Murrow as he takes on McCarthyism.

While the monochrome aesthetic of Clooney’s outing was a choice, Citizen Kane’s greyscale appearance is a reflection of its time period. A bonafide classic, Orson Welles’ picture tackles politics from a variety of angles: the politics of wealth and influence, of romantic scandal, and of media monopolisation.

To Kill a Mockingbird takes us from political gamesmanship to the socio-political realm. A parable on human decency, this courtroom drama sees Gregory Peck confront racial injustice as Atticus Finch, one of cinema and literature’s favourite heroes. Indeed, with over half a century separating their release dates, Selma spotlights a similar issue. About the African-American struggle for voting rights in Alabama, Ava DuVernay’s emotive film is worth seeing for a myriad of reasons, not least David Oyelowo’s tremendous turn as Martin Luther King, Jr.

The remaining four selections have war as a common theme. Geopolitics reigns supreme in Zero Dark Thirty, a tale of true grit told by Kathryn Bigelow and Jessica Chastain, behind and in front of the camera respectively. While the story centres on the search for Osama bin Laden, the film is really about a woman overcoming diversity, both on an instutional level and an international one.

Another recent political thriller, Eye in the Sky considers the boardroom morality of drone warfare. This one flew under the radar last year and deserved a bigger audience, exposing the pass-the-buck attitude of those in power when it comes to decisions regarding drone strikes and civilian casualties.

The opposite is true in one of 2015’s best films: Bridge of Spies combines the rugged diplomacy of Eye in the Sky and the humanist overtures of To Kill a Mockingbird, with Tom Hanks typically playing the everyman willing to take on Cold War geopolitics in a bid to secure the safe return of a captured fighter pilot.

Perhaps the greatest of them all, politics meets satire in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. At least, it was satire back in 1964. Nowadays, Stanley Kubrick’s mosaic on the absurdity of nuclear warfare is less a vehicle for humour and more a worrying reflection of reality. Dr. Strangelove suggests we would be better off governed by those stringently against pushing big, red buttons. Make sense.