10 films Don­ald Trump should screen in the White House

At the end of an incen­di­ary first week in office, in which Don­ald Trump issued trav­el bans on mil­lions of Mus­lims, mem­bers of the admin­is­tra­tion report­ed­ly got togeth­er in the White House to watch Pixar’s Find­ing Dory, a film about reunit­ing a fam­i­ly with themes of migra­tion, anti-bul­ly­ing and envi­ron­men­tal awareness.

The irony appears to have been lost on Trump and his team, but now thank­ful­ly Ellen DeGeneres has clar­i­fied mat­ters by recap­ping the film’s plot sum­ma­ry. This got us think­ing, wouldn’t it be great if who­ev­er is in charge of pro­gram­ming future Pres­i­den­tial screen­ings used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to edu­cate Trump on a range of issues? Here are 10 films the POTUS should prob­a­bly watch soon­er rather than later.

Asghar Farhadi’s psy­cho­log­i­cal study of a friend­ship group falling apart over a week­end is Mid­dle East­ern cin­e­ma at its finest. But while it’s set on the shores of the Black Sea, this is a uni­ver­sal sto­ry that could just as well have tak­en place in the Hamp­tons. Though not overt­ly polit­i­cal, it’s a film that presents Mus­lim peo­ple as reg­u­lar, mod­ern indi­vid­u­als, rather than as the vague col­lec­tive threat prop­a­gat­ed by con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians and the right-wing media.

Quite pos­si­bly the best (only?) com­e­dy about abor­tion. Don­na Stern (Jen­ny Slate) is come­di­an who gets preg­nant fol­low­ing a one-night stand. Where oth­er films might show her warm­ing up to the idea of moth­er­hood, direc­tor Gillian Robe­spierre bold­ly fol­lows through on Stern exer­cis­ing her right to choose what to do with her own body. And at only 84 min­utes, it’s the per­fect length for a busy President.

These two are true ​“nasty women”. An thrilling out­law nar­ra­tive rem­i­nis­cent of Butch Cas­sidy and the Sun­dance Kid, there’s a clear fem­i­nist mes­sage at the core of Rid­ley Scott’s film. The char­ac­ters aren’t just on the run from the cops, but from an abu­sive, con­de­scend­ing patri­ar­chal soci­ety. Pushed too far, Thel­ma (Geena Davis) and Louise (Susan Saran­don) become embold­ened to fight back, not just for them­selves, but on behalf of all women who have been manip­u­lat­ed, humil­i­at­ed and grabbed by the pussy.

Through­out the 1950s, the rabid­ly anti-Com­mu­nist Sen­a­tor Joseph McCarthy sought to cen­sor and silence any­one har­bour­ing ​“Red” sym­pa­thies. George Clooney’s film is about broad­cast­er Edward R Murrow’s fear­less defi­ance of McCarthy’s para­noid orders, and his fight to uphold the free­dom of the press. It serves as a time­ly reminder that so long as there are jour­nal­ists com­mit­ted to report­ing the truth, the gov­ern­ment will nev­er be able to con­trol the media as it pleases.

Cary Fukunaga’s mov­ing dra­ma shows the lengths that thou­sands of Latin Amer­i­cans endure every year in order to start a new life in the USA. The film focus­es on a Hon­duran teenag­er on her way to rel­a­tives in New Jer­sey, and a young Mex­i­can hop­ing to escape the gang who adopt­ed him as a youth. Com­pelling per­for­mances and arrest­ing cam­er­a­work draw the view­er into their sto­ry and their per­ilous jour­ney. So much so, that we think even Trump might secret­ly root for them to make it to the border.

No one is sug­gest­ing that the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed Trump is a dic­ta­tor, but we think he could stand to learn a thing or two from the rous­ing speech Char­lie Chap­lin deliv­ers at the end of the film. Pos­ing as the tit­u­lar ruler, the Jew­ish bar­ber artic­u­late­ly empha­sis­es that there are more impor­tant things than pow­er: ​“Let us fight to free the world – to do away with nation­al bar­ri­ers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.”

Alex Gibney’s har­row­ing doc­u­men­tary tells of an inno­cent Afghani taxi dri­ver who was tor­tured to death by Amer­i­can sol­diers fol­low­ing post ⁹⁄₁₁ inter­ro­ga­tion pro­to­cols. The film offers up a scathing indict­ment of the hor­ri­fy­ing acts of abuse sanc­tioned by the CIA to extract infor­ma­tion from ter­ror sus­pects. It’s a sober­ing exposé that should be manda­to­ry view­ing for any­one who advo­cates tor­ture as a means of nation­al policy.

The main thing any­one remem­bers about Any Giv­en Sun­day is Al Pacino’s stir­ring, inspi­ra­tional pregame speech as the coach of an Amer­i­can foot­ball team. This is what ​“lock­er room talk” should sound like…

One to watch with Marine Le Pen should she ever vis­it DC. This chill­ing Paris-set social dra­ma from direc­tor Math­ieu Kasso­vitz looks at how three friends from the des­ti­tute ban­lieues (one Mus­lim, one Jew­ish and one African) are left feel­ing mar­gin­alised in their own city. Bru­talised by the very forces that are meant to serve and pro­tect them, the film chron­i­cles their strug­gle to sup­press the urge to retal­i­ate with vio­lence in kind. The tagline, ​“hatred breeds hatred”, could be a max­im for our trou­bled times.

We feel that Trump would gain a lot from tak­ing an after­noon off to watch Michael Cimino’s Viet­nam War epic. Not only does it give an insight into the appalling bru­tal­i­ty suf­fered by POWs, but all the shots show­ing Pennsylvania’s ail­ing steel indus­try should serve to refo­cus the President’s atten­tion towards reen­er­gis­ing America’s Rust Belt. Oh, and Meryl Streep’s real­ly quite good in it.

Which films do you think Pres­i­dent Trump should screen at the White House? Have your say @LWLies