Watch it on: Pluto TV
Nixon (1995, directed by Oliver Stone)
Stone became America’s foremost purveyor of government mistrust in the 1980s and ’90s, producing bombastic hits such as Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and JFK, all of which seethed with derision at the status quo. But probably the best subject for his aggressive and confrontational style of filmmaking was Richard Nixon, whose life he dramatized in this three-hour epic (the director’s cut pushes it to three and a half). Anthony Hopkins is no physical match for the president he portrays, but his imitation is nonetheless extraordinary, delving into the suspicion that defined the man behind closed doors. Stone’s film, like others in his oeuvre, plays fast and loose with history, feeling more like an opera than a documentary. But that seems fitting for Nixon, a president whose gruff public persona belied a backstage reliance on skulduggery and intimidation to stay in power.
Watch it on: Rentable
Absolute Power (1997, directed by Clint Eastwood)
Disillusionment in the 1970s revolved around the Vietnam War, suppression of student protests, and suspicion of the intelligence community. But in the ’90s, it often centered on public morals and sex scandals, especially those connected to the Clinton White House. Eastwood’s ludicrous thriller has an all-star cast (Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Laura Linney) and a lurid premise: A master thief (Eastwood) breaks into a mansion and accidentally witnesses the president (Hackman) murdering a woman he’s having an affair with. Things spiral into even more preposterous directions from there, but it’s all told with Eastwood’s typical soberness as he digs into a government that’s rotting from the inside.
Watch it on: Rentable
Wag the Dog (1997, directed by Barry Levinson)
Perhaps the only out-and-out comedy on this list, Wag the Dog is an eerily prescient satire of media manipulation that feels only more plausible as the years pass. Hired to distract the media from an oncoming sex scandal involving the president, spin doctor Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) hires Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to concoct a phony war with Albania, flooding the television airwaves with fake footage to stir up patriotic fervor. Most of the film is played for laughs, poking at the egotistical similarities between Conrad’s political hackery and Stanley’s visual puffery. But the film takes a dark turn in its final act and survives the tonal shift, illustrating just how far the government will go to protect its own image.
Watch it on: Rentable
The X-Files (1998, directed by Rob Bowman)
No discussion of governmental thrillers is complete without mention of The X-Files, the masterful ’90s television series that mixed up every prominent conspiracy theory of the previous four decades and turned it into a compelling weekly drama. Alien abductions, presidential assassinations, Nazi collaboration, planet-wide surveillance—it’s all present, and all being investigated by the dogged FBI Agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson), though they’re usually thwarted by shadowy figures at the highest levels of power. Bowman’s film version fits into the show’s serialized chronology, but it’s also a terrific standalone thriller, giving Mulder and Scully’s adventures a blockbuster sheen that’s still suffused with the same trust-no-one atmosphere of the series.