Depictions of the President of the United States of America in film and television often reflect what we long for in a leader, as screenwriters have attempted to create fictional Presidents in the image of the world's greatest leaders, as well as romanticized (or critical) versions of real-life Presidents. These films appeal to an audience's desire to peer inside the Oval Office and see the snap judgment calls that affect the lives of millions. No disaster film is complete without an appearance by the President, and when POTUS is occasionally pressed into action in a fighter jet (Independence Day) or on his presidential plane (Air Force One) we get to see how he or she performs under fire.
When portraying a real-life President, filmmakers are tasked with a casting decision that may make or break their film, as the appearance and voice of Presidents are so prevalent in daily life, that capturing them accurately becomes crucial in telling their stories. This has been a proving ground for actors like Brendan Gleeson and Anthony Hopkins, who were already established actors tasked with combining impersonation and a stirring performance, even if they hailed from another country.
The following are the 21 greatest performances as President of the United States in TV and Film.
22 Brendan Gleeson as Donald Trump in The Comey Rule
Regardless of your opinion of Donald Trump, you'd be hard-pressed to say that Brendan Gleeson overplayed his hand as the former President in The Comey Rule. Gleeson employed the pompadour wig, the incredible physical presence, and the bullying glare of the mogul-turned-politician.
The limited series examined FBI Director James Comey's role in handing the 2016 election to Trump to preserve the integrity of the FBI, and Gleeson captured Trump's surprisingly fickle priorities once he gained office. Few had even seen the Irish actor Gleeson employ an American accent, much less a spot-on impersonation of the former President, as The Comey Rule reiterated the source book's thesis, as forgiving of Comey as it was critical of Trump.
21 Jamie Foxx as James Sawyer in White House Down
If there are a few things we can always count on director Roland Emmerich for, it's large explosions, hyperbolic action and some seriously over-stated characters. Jamie Foxx's performance as President James Sawyer in White House Down was a refreshing departure from those tendencies, as his understated, timid POTUS underlines the importance of John Cale (Channing Tatum) protecting Sawyer from the oncoming onslaught after that requisite "Emmerich Explosion" levels the United States' Capitol.
Foxx makes a believable President, less a savvy Washington D.C.-insider and more in the mold of our nation's greatest Civil Rights leaders. Sure, the premise is a bit far-flung, but Foxx brings it down-to-earth, in a way that leaves us guessing about how the President will react with each escalating predicament.
20 Benjamin Walker as Abraham Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
We have yet to double-check the historical accuracy of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, as it's too fun imagining Lincoln in his formative days of battling the undead. Benjamin Walker makes it seem like less of a long shot, as he illuminated the Tim Burton-produced action film. Making the Vampires slave-owners was the chef's kiss, putting-in-check anyone who finds vamps to be sympathetic characters. Walker actually gives a convincing performance as the Vamp-Killer-in-Chief, and while he doesn't rise to the level of a Daniel Day-Lewis, we'd certainly opt for Walker's version of Lincoln after a long day of work.
19 Charlize Theron as Charlotte Field in The Long Shot
Showing a cross-section between a famous politician and an everyday schmoe is always a fun exercise in filmmaking, and The Long Shot does exactly that, pitting Secretary of State Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) opposite a journalist named Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen), whom she used to babysit. As Field longs for Executive Office in the White House, she gradually falls in love with the moralist Flarsky, whose integrity makes up for the chasm between their respective careers. What the movie lacks in execution it makes up for with a novel approach to political satire, and Theron's approach to the character makes her one to root for by the time she survives some political back-stabbing to be elected into the Presidency.
18 Aaron Eckhart as Benjamin Asher in Olympus Has Fallen
Aaron Eckhart gave a quality action performance in Olympus Has Fallen as President Benjamin Asher, who escapes a highly coordinated terrorist attack in London with his top Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler). The duo solidify their bromance by crawling through some sewers, collecting a few machine guns, then kicking some serious terrorist tushy. Antoine Fuqua directed this first installment of the Has Fallen franchise, helping to give us what we crave out of a Presidential performance — a leader who isn't afraid to get his hands wet when the doody hits the fan. Wait — that sounded weird.
17 Dennis Haysbert as David Palmer in 24
Dennis Haysbert brought prestige and poise to the role of President David Palmer on the hit network action series 24, which somehow could stretch a 24-hour timeline across an entire season of television, as federal agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) helps President Palmer foil a terrorist plot. Haysbert had tremendous acting range throughout his career, playing everyone from Cuban baseball phenom Serrano in Major League to the ill-fated getaway driver in Heat, but became a household name with his regal, commanding performance as POTUS. Haysbert's gentle demeanor and basso profundo voice became so synonymous with safety and security, that he became the face of those omnipresent Allstate Insurance commercials after 24 became a hit.
16 Donald Pleasance as John Harker in Escape From New York
In John Carpenter's post-apocalyptic action epic Escape from New York, President John Harker (Donald Pleasance) survives a plane hijacking only to be kidnapped within the demilitarized zone of Manhattan, which has been walled off to encapsulate its anarchic residents. Snake Plisken (Kurt Russell) is tasked to find the President, whom Pleasance plays squeamishly, underlining Plisken's need to usher him to safety, despite his checkered history and a serious lack of depth perception. The performance is rare for showing that the President is a person just like the rest of us — terrified by this group of misfit captors and their own commanding leader, The Duke, played by sensational soul singer and South Park's one-time Chef, Isaac Hayes.
15 Glenn Close as Kathryn Bennett in Air Force One
In Air Force One, Glenn Close plays Vice President Kathryn Bennett, who is forced to step in as acting President when James Marshall's (Harrison Ford) plane is hijacked. Bennett shows pressure under fire, rising to the occasion to help coordinate the plan to help the President and his family survive the harrowing ordeal, keeping the seat in the Oval Office warm until Marshall can dispatch of the terrorists who overcome the plane's security detail in Wolfgang Peterson's action-packed film.
14 Jack Nicholson as James Dale in Mars Attacks!
Jack Nicholson is anything but presidential in the role of James Dale in Mars Attacks!, as he seems more concerned with his constituents' perception of him than actually sorting out the impending Martian invasion. Nicholson plays the lead jester of a confederacy of dunces, with his daughter (Natalie Portman) making some of the biggest calls when Dale proves to be a lame duck.
13 Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon
As far as playing real-life Presidents goes, Frank Langella exposes all the insecurities of Richard Nixon, the ex-Commander-in-Chief who verbally jousts with his interviewer David Frost (Michael Sheen) in Frost/Nixon. Langella illuminated Nixon's ill-fated decision to try and set the record straight on his presidency and the Watergate scandal, which backfires when Frost, after working his way into the former president's good graces, exposes the unfettered narcissism that led to Nixon's downfall.
12 Kevin Kline as Dave Kovic in Dave
Kevin Kline plays a mild-mannered presidential impersonator in Dave, who is pressed into action in the world's highest office when the real President suffers a stroke that his cabinet attempts to hide from the nation by enlisting his doppelganger. Dave rises to the occasion, becoming a much more lovable version of the debilitated Commander-in-Chief, and rekindles the flame of loveless marriage to the First Lady, Ellen Mitchell (Sigourney Weaver).
11 Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon in Nixon
President Richard Nixon has had many incarnations in film, as the flawed leader had a personality that warranted exploration. Anthony Hopkins didn't fail in his ability to capture Nixon's insecurities and fateful decisions in Oliver Stone's film, which was hypercritical of Nixon's tenure. Nixon plays bookend to Stone's other presidential picture, JFK, as the director has long been fascinated with unpacking these histories.
10 Jeff Bridges as Jackson Evans in The Contender
We've all heard the rumors of Barack Obama's love of Marlboros, but the sight of Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) blowing o's in the Oval Office was jarring to say the least. That opening scene sets the tone for The Contender, a Y2K Era political drama about the confirmation of a deceased Vice President's replacement. Bridges plays the role with tremendous aplomb, but also a large degree of authenticity for a fictional President, combining Lyndon B. Johnson's commanding presence with the handsome poise of John F. Kennedy — which captures the audience's character investment at the top of the film. Only Bridges could go from "The Dude" to POTUS in only two years time, and in the latter role he brought the exposition-heavy writing of Rod Lurie to life, with a moderate-leaning Democrat as shrewd as he is sophisticated.
9 Harrison Ford as James Marshall in Air Force One
Harrison Ford combined all the regality and poise necessary to create a believable President James Marshall in Air Force One, as he takes up arms and plots to save his family when his plane is hijacked by a band of terrorists led by Ivan Korshunov (Gary Oldman). Marshall has some combat experience from his Vietnam days, and dupes his plane's captors by pretending to jettison his escape pod, before dispatching of the remaining terrorist and helping the surviving crew and cabinet members who are on board escape to safety.
8 Bryan Cranston as Lyndon B. Johnson in All the Way
Lyndon B. Johnson was a polarizing President, given the duality of his role in American History and the Vietnam War in particular. Bryan Cranston helps illuminate All the Way, an interesting portrait of Johnson's initial reluctance to replace John F. Kennedy after his assassination, and delves into Johnson's controversial relationship with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover — and how it played into the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Cranston captures the good-old-boy, Texas-born essence of Johnson, whose ego was his greatest asset — and often his greatest liability. Cranston went the extra mile in not only duplicating Johnson's Texan drawl, but his mannerisms and over-bearing physical presence.
7 Kingsley Ben-Adir as Barack Obama in The Comey Rule
Kingsley Ben-Adir is a dead ringer for President Barack Obama in The Comey Rule, doing a spot-on impersonation of Obama's soothing, rhetorical voice and cool, calm demeanor. Obama and Comey develop a solid working relationship in the limited series, as the source book's revisionist history shows that Comey was between a rock and a hard place when it came to his difficult decision to investigate Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's missteps in handling classified intelligence. We hope Ben-Adir plays Obama in any future filmic depictions of the now former-President, as there likely isn't another actor who could do it better than he.
6 Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer in Veep
- Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Veep underlines Selina Meyer's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) seemingly-silly White House presence, when incumbent President Stuart Hughes resigns the Nation's highest executive position before ever sitting in the Oval Office. The series suddenly snaps into a real-life scenario, as the tension between Meyer's reluctance to rise to the occasion crosses streams with her power-grabbing personality.
Veep creates an Iranian diplomatic crisis to mimic Jimmy Carter's unenviable relationship with the often-anti-American sentiment of the Middle Eastern nation, where an American reporter has been fictionally detained. Louis-Dreyfus cuts a surprisingly-formidable political personality during the crisis, and stimulates conversation about how a politician should conduct themselves when their personal interests run afoul of the nation they serve, and whether it really matters with a show that generates as many laughs as Veep.
5 Henry Fonda as the President in Fail Safe
If Dr. Strangelove is the most effective Cold War film ever made, Fail Safe is its most practical, as Henry Fonda laid down his gun holster long enough to play a convincing President — lending credence to this otherwise very jingoistic and anti-communist film. Fonda's performance illuminates the decisions real-life President John F. Kennedy was faced with only 3 years prior to this film's release during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The specter of nuclear war had been a reality since President Truman's decision to drop two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities, and Fonda created a delectable speculation on how the President might operate behind-closed-doors were a nuclear threat to ever arise.
4 Morgan Freeman as Tom Beck in Deep Impact
The late-90s obsession with disaster films finally found a convincing Commander-in-Chief in Morgan Freeman, an actor who commands enough respect to be a believable President for any audience. There was a time when Freeman playing God would have seem too far-fetched, but this stepping-stone performance by the acting luminary as a national father-figure did much to lay that groundwork, as Freeman's poetic speeches sell himself as the Leader of the Free World in Deep Impact. This could be classified as one of those roles that depicts the President we all want, thanks in large part to Freeman's studied leadership qualities in the role.
3 Michael Douglas as Andrew Shephard in The American President
One of Rob Reiner's most criminally-underappreciated films, The American President has aged like a fine wine, thanks to the perfect marriage of Aaron Sorkin's screenplay and Michael Douglas's performance as President Andrew Shephard. Only a few years removed from Basic Instinct, Douglas switched gears to a role we would've thought more apt to his father Kurt, as the actor brought an assuredness to the role of a widower President, as much subject to a longing-for-love as the average bear. The film was an interesting combination of Reiner's romantic-comedy prowess and Sorkin's enjoyment of political subject-matter, a combination that few actors besides Douglas could have made sense of.