The Internet Movie Database has "Politics" as one of the keywords describing the films below.
| Rank | Title | Year | Director(s) | Overall Rank |
| 1 | Citizen Kane | 1941 | Orson Welles | 4 |
| 2 | Casablanca | 1942 | Michael Curtiz | 5 |
| 3 | Taxi Driver | 1976 | Martin Scorsese | 14 |
| 4 | Lawrence of Arabia | 1962 | David Lean | 19 |
| 5 | A Clockwork Orange | 1971 | Stanley Kubrick | 24 |
| 6 | Gone with the Wind | 1939 | Victor Fleming | 32 |
| 7 | Metropolis | 1927 | Fritz Lang | 39 |
| 8 | The Dark Knight | 2008 | Christopher Nolan | 47 |
| 9 | Nashville | 1975 | Robert Altman | 121 |
| 10 | Gladiator | 2000 | Ridley Scott | 137 |
| 11 | The Battle of Algiers | 1966 | Gillo Pontecorvo | 145 |
| 12 | Ben-Hur | 1959 | William Wyler | 159 |
| 13 | Andrei Rublev | 1966 | Andrei Tarkovsky | 160 |
| 14 | Amadeus | 1984 | Milos Forman | 163 |
| 15 | Donnie Darko | 2001 | Richard Kelly | 176 |
| 16 | The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance | 1962 | John Ford | 178 |
| 17 | Braveheart | 1995 | Mel Gibson | 185 |
| 18 | Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon | 2000 | Ang Lee | 191 |
| 19 | Akira | 1988 | Katsuhiro Ôtomo | 204 |
| 20 | The Manchurian Candidate | 1962 | John Frankenheimer | 214 |
| 21 | The Lives of Others | 2006 | Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | 218 |
| 22 | Cabaret | 1972 | Bob Fosse | 224 |
| 23 | The Conformist | 1970 | Bernardo Bertolucci | 229 |
| 24 | Ikiru | 1952 | Akira Kurosawa | 256 |
| 25 | All the President's Men | 1976 | Alan J. Pakula | 290 |
| 26 | The Leopard | 1963 | Luchino Visconti | 293 |
| 27 | Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | 1939 | Frank Capra | 303 |
| 28 | Withnail & I | 1987 | Bruce Robinson | 313 |
| 29 | Before Sunset | 2004 | Richard Linklater | 315 |
| 30 | The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie | 1972 | Luis Buñuel | 316 |
| 31 | Ghost in the Shell | 1995 | Mamoru Oshii | 374 |
| 32 | Hidden | 2005 | Michael Haneke | 409 |
| 33 | Ace in the Hole | 1951 | Billy Wilder | 423 |
| 34 | Downfall | 2004 | Oliver Hirschbiegel | 424 |
| 35 | Y tu mamá también | 2001 | Alfonso Cuarón | 426 |
| 36 | American History X | 1998 | Tony Kaye | 428 |
| 37 | Umberto D. | 1952 | Vittorio De Sica | 445 |
| 38 | Persepolis | 2007 | Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi | 472 |
| 39 | Gandhi | 1982 | Richard Attenborough | 482 |
| 40 | Napoléon | 1927 | Abel Gance | 500 |
| 41 | JFK | 1991 | Oliver Stone | 529 |
| 42 | Election | 1999 | Alexander Payne | 546 |
| 43 | Ashes and Diamonds | 1958 | Andrzej Wajda | 547 |
| 44 | Being There | 1979 | Hal Ashby | 554 |
| 45 | If.... | 1968 | Lindsay Anderson | 559 |
| 46 | Z | 1969 | Costa-Gavras | 584 |
| 47 | Independence Day | 1996 | Roland Emmerich | 588 |
| 48 | Ivan the Terrible | 1944 | Sergei M. Eisenstein | 618 |
| 49 | Bowling for Columbine | 2002 | Michael Moore | 630 |
| 50 | Love Actually | 2003 | Richard Curtis | 636 |
| 51 | Naked | 1993 | Mike Leigh | 639 |
| 52 | Giant | 1956 | George Stevens | 641 |
| 53 | Beau travail | 1999 | Claire Denis | 646 |
| 54 | 300 | 2006 | Zack Snyder | 666 |
| 55 | Closely Watched Trains | 1966 | Jirí Menzel | 680 |
| 56 | V for Vendetta | 2005 | James McTeigue | 705 |
| 57 | The Sorrow and the Pity | 1969 | Marcel Ophüls | 709 |
| 58 | Farewell My Concubine | 1993 | Kaige Chen | 715 |
| 59 | Malcolm X | 1992 | Spike Lee | 746 |
| 60 | Serpico | 1973 | Sidney Lumet | 767 |
| 61 | My Own Private Idaho | 1991 | Gus Van Sant | 769 |
| 62 | The Passenger | 1975 | Michelangelo Antonioni | 833 |
| 63 | A Man for All Seasons | 1966 | Fred Zinnemann | 838 |
| 64 | My Beautiful Laundrette | 1985 | Stephen Frears | 869 |
| 65 | Milk | 2008 | Gus Van Sant | 886 |
| 66 | Werckmeister Harmonies | 2000 | Béla Tarr | 890 |
| 67 | The Scarlet Empress | 1934 | Josef von Sternberg | 913 |
| 68 | The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara | 2003 | Errol Morris | 929 |
| 69 | Team America: World Police | 2004 | Trey Parker | 936 |
| 70 | Black Hawk Down | 2001 | Ridley Scott | 947 |
| 71 | Orlando | 1992 | Sally Potter | 955 |
| 72 | The Remains of the Day | 1993 | James Ivory | 956 |
| 73 | I Am Cuba | 1964 | Mikheil Kalatozishvili | 965 |
| 74 | Three Kings | 1999 | David O. Russell | 967 |
| 75 | Young Mr. Lincoln | 1939 | John Ford | 975 |
| 76 | The Tin Drum | 1979 | Volker Schlöndorff | 980 |
| 77 | Underground | 1995 | Emir Kusturica | 1010 |
| 78 | A Face in the Crowd | 1957 | Elia Kazan | 1013 |
| 79 | Blow Out | 1981 | Brian De Palma | 1035 |
| 80 | Zodiac | 2007 | David Fincher | 1037 |
| 81 | The Insider | 1999 | Michael Mann | 1105 |
| 82 | 42 Up | 1998 | Michael Apted | 1144 |
| 83 | The Best of Youth | 2003 | Marco Tullio Giordana | 1147 |
| 84 | Taken | 2008 | Pierre Morel | 1166 |
| 85 | The Ice Storm | 1997 | Ang Lee | 1182 |
| 86 | Ali | 2001 | Michael Mann | 1199 |
| 87 | Slacker | 1990 | Richard Linklater | 1207 |
| 88 | The Times of Harvey Milk | 1984 | Rob Epstein | 1220 |
| 89 | Arrival | 2016 | Denis Villeneuve | 1223 |
| 90 | Elizabeth | 1998 | Shekhar Kapur | 1240 |
| 91 | Skyfall | 2012 | Sam Mendes | 1259 |
| 92 | Born Yesterday | 1950 | George Cukor | 1276 |
| 93 | Captain America: Civil War | 2016 | Anthony and Joe Russo | 1289 |
| 94 | In the Loop | 2009 | Armando Iannucci | 1311 |
| 95 | Hunger | 2008 | Steve McQueen | 1321 |
| 96 | 49 Up | 2005 | Michael Apted | 1329 |
| 97 | In the Name of the Father | 1993 | Jim Sheridan | 1333 |
| 98 | Hearts and Minds | 1974 | Peter Davis | 1346 |
| 99 | Black Panther | 2018 | Ryan Coogler | 1372 |
| 100 | Three Days of the Condor | 1975 | Sydney Pollack | 1378 |
| 101 | Fury | 1936 | Fritz Lang | 1385 |
| 102 | A City of Sadness | 1989 | Hsiao-hsien Hou | 1388 |
| 103 | The Dead | 1987 | John Huston | 1406 |
| 104 | The Parallax View | 1974 | Alan J. Pakula | 1411 |
| 105 | Zero Dark Thirty | 2012 | Kathryn Bigelow | 1419 |
| 106 | Traffic | 2000 | Steven Soderbergh | 1452 |
| 107 | Born on the Fourth of July | 1989 | Oliver Stone | 1467 |
| 108 | Captain America: The Winter Soldier | 2014 | Anthony and Joe Russo | 1475 |
| 109 | The Queen | 2006 | Stephen Frears | 1498 |
| 110 | The Way We Were | 1973 | Sydney Pollack | 1502 |
| 111 | Fail-Safe | 1964 | Sidney Lumet | 1520 |
| 112 | Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters | 1985 | Paul Schrader | 1525 |
| 113 | Le Corbeau | 1943 | Henri-Georges Clouzot | 1582 |
| 114 | Selma | 2014 | Ava DuVernay | 1589 |
| 115 | The Barbarian Invasions | 2003 | Denys Arcand | 1590 |
| 116 | Good Bye Lenin! | 2003 | Wolfgang Becker | 1596 |
| 117 | 1900 | 1976 | Bernardo Bertolucci | 1600 |
| 118 | The Unbearable Lightness of Being | 1988 | Philip Kaufman | 1601 |
| 119 | The Aviator | 2004 | Martin Scorsese | 1605 |
| 120 | The Man in the White Suit | 1951 | Alexander Mackendrick | 1614 |
| 121 | Fahrenheit 9/11 | 2004 | Michael Moore | 1615 |
| 122 | To Live | 1994 | Yimou Zhang | 1616 |
| 123 | Munich | 2005 | Steven Spielberg | 1624 |
| 124 | Muriel's Wedding | 1994 | P.J. Hogan | 1640 |
| 125 | Cleopatra | 1963 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | 1654 |
| 126 | Burnt by the Sun | 1994 | Nikita Mikhalkov | 1743 |
| 127 | The Hour of the Furnaces | 1968 | Octavio Getino, Fernando E. Solanas, and Santiago Álvarez | 1762 |
| 128 | Gangs of New York | 2002 | Martin Scorsese | 1774 |
| 129 | Edvard Munch | 1974 | Peter Watkins | 1787 |
| 130 | The Battle of Chile: Part 1 | 1975 | Patricio Guzmán | 1808 |
| 131 | Lincoln | 2012 | Steven Spielberg | 1814 |
| 132 | Mississippi Burning | 1988 | Alan Parker | 1833 |
| 133 | Good Night, and Good Luck. | 2005 | George Clooney | 1854 |
| 134 | Teorema | 1968 | Pier Paolo Pasolini | 1855 |
| 135 | The Battle of Chile: Part 2 | 1976 | Patricio Guzmán | 1884 |
| 136 | Maurice | 1987 | James Ivory | 1894 |
| 137 | All the King's Men | 1949 | Robert Rossen | 1900 |
| 138 | Searching for Sugar Man | 2012 | Malik Mendjelloul | 1905 |
| 139 | The Last Samurai | 2003 | Edward Zwick | 1922 |
| 140 | Silkwood | 1983 | Mike Nichols | 1924 |
| 141 | A Tale of Two Sisters | 2003 | Jee-woon Kim | 1933 |
| 142 | Devil in a Blue Dress | 1995 | Carl Franklin | 1938 |
| 143 | Nixon | 1995 | Oliver Stone | 1946 |
| 144 | Idiocracy | 2006 | Mike Judge | 1953 |
| 145 | The Constant Gardner | 2005 | Fernando Meirelles | 1963 |
| 146 | An Inconvenient Truth | 2006 | Davis Guggenheim | 1975 |
| 147 | The Damned | 1969 | Luchino Visconti | 1976 |
| 148 | Advise & Consent | 1962 | Otto Preminger | 1981 |
| 149 | I'm Not There. | 2007 | Todd Haynes | 2008 |
| 150 | The Andromeda Strain | 1971 | Robert Wise | 2011 |
| 151 | Seven Days in May | 1964 | John Frankenheimer | 2018 |
| 152 | 1984 | 1984 | Michael Radford | 2028 |
| 153 | Frida | 2002 | Julie Taymor | 2031 |
| 154 | Gettysburg | 1993 | Ronald F. Maxwell | 2033 |
| 155 | Dune | 1984 | David Lynch | 2034 |
| 156 | Masculine Feminine | 1966 | Jean-Luc Godard | 2041 |
| 157 | The Garden of the Finzi-Continis | 1970 | Vittorio De Sica | 2042 |
| 158 | Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion | 1970 | Elio Petri | 2048 |
| 159 | Evita | 1996 | Alan Parker | 2058 |
| 160 | Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | 2016 | Gareth Edwards | 2060 |
| 161 | Salvatore Giuliano | 1962 | Francesco Rosi | 2068 |
| 162 | Born in Flames | 1983 | Lizzie Borden | 2070 |
| 163 | Chocolat | 2000 | Lasse Hallström | 2077 |
| 164 | A Single Man | 2009 | Tom Ford | 2087 |
| 165 | Star Trek into Darkness | 2013 | J.J. Abrams | 2089 |
| 166 | Annie | 1982 | John Huston | 2097 |
| 167 | Lacombe Lucien | 1974 | Louis Malle | 2116 |
| 168 | The Last King of Scotland | 2006 | Kevin Macdonald | 2128 |
| 169 | À Nous la Liberté | 1931 | René Clair | 2136 |
| 170 | Kolya | 1996 | Jan Sverák | 2142 |
| 171 | Land and Freedom | 1995 | Ken Loach | 2147 |
| 172 | Primary | 1960 | Robert Drew | 2166 |
| 173 | Happy Feet | 2006 | George Miller | 2192 |
| 174 | Longtime Companion | 1989 | Norman René | 2223 |
| 175 | Thank You for Smoking | 2005 | Jason Reitman | 2264 |
| 176 | Missing | 1982 | Costa-Gavras | 2295 |
| 177 | No Man's Land | 2001 | Danis Tanovic | 2304 |
| 178 | Major Dundee | 1965 | Sam Peckinpah | 2311 |
| 179 | Bus 174 | 2002 | José Padilha | 2318 |
| 180 | Air Force One | 1997 | Wolfgang Petersen | 2347 |
| 181 | In the Line of Fire | 1993 | Wolfgang Petersen | 2350 |
| 182 | The Quiet American | 2002 | Phillip Noyce | 2360 |
| 183 | eXistenZ | 1999 | David Cronenberg | 2391 |
| 184 | Becket | 1964 | Peter Glenville | 2409 |
| 185 | Sicko | 2007 | Michael Moore | 2427 |
| 186 | Man of Marble | 1977 | Andrzej Wajda | 2432 |
| 187 | Irma Vep | 1996 | Olivier Assayas | 2437 |
| 188 | The Official Story | 1985 | Luis Puenzo | 2438 |
| 189 | Together | 2000 | Lukas Moodysson | 2441 |
| 190 | Before the Rain | 1994 | Milcho Manchevski | 2442 |
| 191 | Arlington Road | 1999 | Mark Pellington | 2449 |
| 192 | Enemy at the Gates | 2001 | Jean-Jacques Annaud | 2456 |
| 193 | The Great McGinty | 1940 | Preston Sturges | 2462 |
| 194 | Sleepers | 1996 | Barry Levinson | 2533 |
| 195 | In the Year of the Pig | 1968 | Emile de Antonio | 2548 |
| 196 | Salt of the Earth | 1954 | Herbert J. Biberman | 2572 |
| 197 | Across the Universe | 2007 | Julie Taymor | 2604 |
| 198 | The American President | 1995 | Rob Reiner | 2607 |
| 199 | Jesus Camp | 2006 | Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady | 2623 |
| 200 | Zabriskie Point | 1970 | Michelangelo Antonioni | 2624 |
| 201 | Days of Glory | 2006 | Rachid Bouchareb | 2626 |
| 202 | Terra em Transe | 1967 | Glauber Rocha | 2647 |
| 203 | Hamlet | 1996 | Kenneth Branagh | 2652 |
| 204 | Enemy of the State | 1998 | Tony Scott | 2655 |
| 205 | Citizen Ruth | 1996 | Alexander Payne | 2664 |
| 206 | Frost/Nixon | 2008 | Ron Howard | 2692 |
| 207 | Mother | 1926 | Vsevolod Pudovkin | 2705 |
| 208 | A Boy and His Dog | 1975 | L.Q. Jones | 2722 |
| 209 | Shut Up & Sing | 2006 | Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck | 2751 |
| 210 | Punishment Park | 1971 | Peter Watkins | 2756 |
| 211 | Murmur of the Heart | 1971 | Louis Malle | 2777 |
| 212 | Clear and Present Danger | 1994 | Phillip Noyce | 2786 |
| 213 | The Promised Land | 1975 | Andrzej Wajda | 2793 |