10 great White House films

The White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington DC is one of the most recognisable buildings in the world. As the residence and office of the US president, it’s a monolith of democracy and national identity which has appeared in films of many genres, its presence evolving on screen alongside changing leaders and cabinets. Its film appearances capitalise on the White House’s unique proposition: we all know what it looks like, but we don’t know much about what goes on behind its closed doors.

From films about a nation on the brink of conflict to movies about personal dramas becoming state issues, the White House is a character in itself that needs no introduction; the famed image of the neoclassical building on the neatly maintained lawn is pristine. However, portrayals of the president’s home and workplace often showcase a chaotic interior. Recreations of the West Wing’s Oval Office and the Cabinet Room contain stressed government officials facing career-defining decisions.

The latest entry into the White House cinematic canon is A House of Dynamite, arriving in UK cinemas on 3 October. Kathryn Bigelow’s tense political thriller chronicles an unidentified nuclear missile aimed at the US as White House officials and the US president (Idris Elba) scurry to locate the source of the encroaching projectile. Intelligence analysts and military chiefs go head-to-head in a race against time. 

Ahead of its release, we’re opening the doors on 10 other key films that illuminate corners of the executive office, spanning presidents, decades and pivotal American history.

Director: Gregory La Cava

The 1930s political fantasy Gabriel over the White House follows corrupt US president Judson Hammond (Walter Huston) at the height of the Great Depression. After being in a near-fatal car crash, the statesman is possessed by the archangel Gabriel (and seemingly the ghost of Abraham Lincoln). Hammond rises as an autocratic leader determined to guide the country out of financial crisis.

Gabriel over the White House’s president was loosely based on Herbert Hoover, who was still in office at the time. The White House is central to the film in its examination of the behaviour of top-hat-wearing politicians. Director Gregory La Cava peers into the private presidential suite and observes Hammond’s affair with his secretary’s assistant. The film’s confused politics, including a descent into fascism, lead to a march on Washington and a drive-by White House shooting.

Director: John Frankenheimer

Based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, this political thriller chronicles a coup d’état conspiracy to overthrow a certain President ​​Jordan Lyman (Fredric March) amid the Cold War, following his signing of a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. Seven Days in May is both a foreboding warning and an optimistic statement in the nuclear age, culminating in an explosive conclusion.

It’s a drama that offers insight into how the White House operates, with chiefs of staff, Air Force generals and the secretary of the treasury all enveloped in the plot. These roles are filled by an impressive cast, including Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner and Martin Balsam. There’s also Edmond O’Brien, whose portrayal of an alcoholic senator earned him a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe.

Director: Theodore J. Flicker

In the opening moments of The President’s Analyst, psychiatrist Dr Sidney Schaefer (James Coburn, sporting a wicked smile) is informed that his therapist couch has been requested at the White House. It seems like the dream assignment, yet becoming privy to the president’s secrets makes him the perfect target for international governments and spies. And so, Schaefer becomes a fugitive on the run.

Theodore J. Flicker’s feature debut is a surreal, scattershot but remarkably biting conspiracy satire. It tackles reactionary politics and the looming threat of a company seeking to blackmail the president into demanding that every citizen has a brain chip implanted. Although the president is not named, seen or heard during the film, the White House’s demands to capture and silence Schaefer are omnipresent. As Schaefer muses: “The president used to be the loneliest job in the world; now even he has someone to talk to! He can talk to me!”

Director: Alan J. Pakula

A Washington Post reporter is sitting at his desk handling two phone calls simultaneously. This is Bob Woodward (Robert Redford). In a six-minute, remarkably intense, slow zoom one-shot, he manages to secure sources to lead his investigation into the Watergate scandal. Based on a true story, this final instalment of Alan J. Pakula’s ‘paranoia trilogy’ sees Bob and his reporting partner Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) poke at the White House from the outside. 

In spotlighting an era-defining political scandal, All the President’s Men sheds light on the White House’s relationship with the media and, in turn, its communication with the general public. In breaking through the impenetrable fortress of White House defences, Pakula’s film showcases the importance of the freedom of the press and holding elected officials to account. As Woodward and Bernstein’s editor tells them: “Nothing’s riding on this except the First Amendment of the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country.”

Director: Ivan Reitman

The 1990s proved a particularly fertile decade for White House-related dramas. During Bill Clinton’s administration, several political movies premiered, this Ivan Reitman comedy coming just four months into Clinton’s first term. The film features several cameos from the Senate, and Clinton even gifted an autographed script to writer Gary Ross, approving of the film.

Reitman’s lampooning comedy chronicles the eponymous Dave (Kevin Kline), a presidential lookalike hired by the Secret Service to assume the role after the president has a stroke. The White House chief of staff (Frank Langella) is hellbent on keeping up appearances for the general public and First Lady (Sigourney Weaver) alike. In Dave, the White House is the heart of the country and must be preserved at all costs. Creating this atmosphere, production designer J. Michael Riva built a remarkable replica of the famous building, in which Kline grows from ordinary civilian to political powerhouse.

Director: Rob Reiner

The formidable pairing of Rob Reiner as director and Aaron Sorkin as writer results in a film that poses the question: does the president have time for love? The American President – which inspired Sorkin’s later television drama The West Wing – follows widowed President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) during his re-election year. Reiner’s film highlights how the president’s private life has always been of interest to the American people. Shepherd even ponders whether the death of his wife boosted empathy for his political campaign. As his press advisor (Richard Dreyfuss) states: “We’ve never gone wrong parading you around as the lonely widower.”

However, when Shepherd meets environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), being the leader of the free world becomes his second priority. Initially, she thinks of him as a “mockery of an environmental leader”, but sparks fly in the meticulously recreated Oval Office. As their date nights at state dinners become public knowledge, Shepherd’s approval ratings plunge. Love and politics clash in this romantic comedy where the White House leader risks it all for love.

Director: Andrew Fleming

If you thought Dave pushed the boundaries of White House dramas, Dick takes it one step further. The audacious political comedy arrived at the turn of the millennium. Although the film bombed at the box office, it has since garnered a cult following and has been likened to a mix between Clueless (1995) and All the President’s Men.

Dick follows young Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as two high school girls meeting President Nixon (Dan Hedaya) when they wander off during a White House school trip. After discovering details about the Watergate complex bugging, the girls are assigned as presidential advisors and inadvertently become the legendary ‘Deep Throat’ figure. The film offers an alternative history that satirises the insecure nature of American political figures. The teenage girls become influential players in the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam and the Nixon-Brezhnev Washington Summit, all because they accidentally offered the president marijuana-laced cookies.

Director: Scott Sanders

An affectionate parody of blaxploitation films, Scott Sanders’ Black Dynamite is a kung-fu-packed action comedy that concludes with a sucker punch at the White House. Set in the early 1970s and framed stylishly with saturated yellow cinematography, it provides lively commentary on race relations and the war on drugs as Vietnam War veteran and ex-CIA agent Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) embark on a crime-fighting mission of revenge against the criminals who killed his brother.

When Dynamite discovers that the evil he has unearthed leads back to the White House, the film culminates in a bizarre yet momentous confrontation in which he faces off against President Nixon. After paragliding on to the White House lawn, Dynamite and Nixon wield nunchucks in the Oval Office. As the fight topples into the hallways, Nixon reaches for John Wilkes Booth’s gun, but Abraham Lincoln’s ghost karate-chops the weapon from his hand. In Black Dynamite, the White House is at the centre of an unlawful spiderweb, and it’s up to the people to make things right.

Director: Pablo Larraín

Before Spencer (2021) and Maria (2024), in Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of taut studies of powerful women, came Jackie. The historical drama centres on Natalie Portman as Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Kennedy, the First Lady, in the immediate aftermath of her husband’s (President Kennedy) assassination. The film is structured around an interview a week after Kennedy’s death, reflecting on the presidential transfer and legacy.

White House tragedies are often sensational – take White House Down (2013) and Olympus Has Fallen (2013) – but Jackie finds a quieter approach. One of the film’s most dramatic and commanding sequences is Portman’s Jackie silently walking through her White House quarters in a pink suit splattered with her husband’s blood. This character has intimate White House relations without direct political involvement. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine’s camera roams through the hallways and recreates Jackie’s famous 1962 televised White House tour, which offered a glimpse behind the walls from the perspective of an insider.

Director: Adam McKay

Many of these films have focused on the main man at the heart of the White House, but Adam McKay’s black comedy is more interested in one of the most powerful vice presidents in American history, Dick Cheney. This biopic spotlights George W. Bush’s (Sam Rockwell) right-hand man, from Yale dropout to Washington insider to second-in-command. A dramatically transformed Christian Bale portrays the ambitious Cheney, who is no stranger to politics, knowing how to manipulate the system to acquire power.

In McKay’s signature satirical tone, the film highlights that while the president may sit tall in the White House, silent power lurks in the shadows. Quite literally, McKay frames his subject in darkness. There are also symbolic visual interludes of fly fishing, such as when Bush offers Cheney the VP position alongside “overseeing bureaucracy, managing military, energy and foreign policy” – the fish takes the bait. In tracking Cheney’s perspective, Vice is a damning indictment of the GOP and the ruthlessness of political ambition.