The Front Runner

Jason Reitman's thrilling take on senator Gary Hart's fall from grace in 1988 shines a powerful light on US politics. It chronicles the rise of American Senator Gary Hart (played by Hugh Jackman), the front runner to be the Democratic presidential nominee, and his subsequent fall from grace when media reports suggested he was having an extramarital affair.

The way The Front Runner tells it, 1988 represented a tipping point. It was the moment when US politics mutated into a toothy, slickly packaged personality pageant. It was the point at which the delicate journalistic balance between duty to the news and accountability to the shareholders was muddied by the realisation that the average punter was more interested in infotainment than in information.

All these years on, the Trumpian overtones in current-day American politics make this film feel remarkably fresh.