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This Memorial Day Weekend, the History Channel presents the two-night, five-hour documentary Theodore Roosevelt, based on the best-selling book Leadership: In Turbulent Times, by Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin. Coproduced by Leonardo DiCaprio, the film will highlight every facet of the life of America’s youngest president — who was also a conservationist, a reformer, a soldier and a cowboy — with interviews from the likes of author Douglas Brinkley and Teddy’s great-grandson Tweed Roosevelt. If you want to spend the holiday weekend bingeing even more presidential content, these nine illuminating documentaries make for a watch list that’s worthy of a landslide victory.
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Primary (1960)
The subject: John F. Kennedy (1961-63)
The premise: Many of the techniques used in this groundbreaking cinema verité work may seem old hat by now, but they were truly revolutionary at the time. Using mobile cameras and lighter sound equipment, the documentarians were able to get up close and personal with the players in the 1960 Wisconsin Democratic primary, as John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey duked it out for the nomination. Thirty years later, the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Watch it: Primary on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, HBO Max
Four More Years (1972)
The subject: Richard Nixon (1969-74)
The premise: You might be shocked at how unfiltered this view of the 1972 Republican National Convention feels. As the network news focused their attention on the choreographed political theater of the convention, the San Francisco–based guerrilla video collective TVTV instead shot everything else happening in the periphery around Miami: the after-parties, discussions among delegates, the anti-war demonstrations outside, the journalists covering the proceedings. The first independently produced film ever shown on national TV, the countercultural documentary included interviews with the likes of Nixon’s daughters, Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite, and one pundit marveled that TVTV beat the networks at their own game — “for the money CBS spent on coffee.”
Watch it: Four More Years on Amazon Prime
Don’t miss this: The Best First Ladies in Movie and Television History
The War Room (1993)
The subject: Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
The premise: Directed by husband-and-wife duo D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus (now 70), this eye-opening film gives a behind-closed-doors look at the Clinton campaign during the 1992 presidential election, from the points of view of two future media stars: lead strategist James Carville (now 77) and communications director George Stephanopoulos (now 61). The directors had hoped to cover the entire election, but when Bush and Perot declined to participate, they focused instead on the “war room” at the Little Rock campaign headquarters, as the team rode the highs and lows of the Gennifer Flowers scandal, the New Hampshire primary, the Democratic National Convention, Bush’s “Read my lips” speech and Clinton’s eventual victory on election night. The film went on to be nominated for best documentary at the 66th Academy Awards.
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