Today is Election Day in the U.S. For those of you in this country, how do you plan to spend your evening after the polls have closed? Will you stay close to your smart phone, computer or TV waiting for the returns or will you completely tune out and read a book or throw on a DVD? What kind of DVD will you opt for? My choice would be something election related, but removed from the current situation. Filmmakers over the years have certainly given us enough choices.

Films directly related to the election process include All the King’s Men; Bulworth; The Candidate; The Last Hurrah; A Lion Is in the Streets; Primary Colors; The Seduction of Joe Tynan; and State of the Union. There’s even a relatively new one about a high school election called Election. Then there are those that delve further into the political process such as Advise & Consent; The Best Man and The Manchurian Candidate.

Want to see something about those elected to the highest office in the land, fictional and real? You can choose from among Abraham Lincoln; All the President’s Men; The American President; JFK; and back to Lincoln. Want to see something about an elected official slightly less important? Look no further than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. For a film about the nation’s beginnings, there’s 1776 but that’s a film better suited to the Fourth of July.

There are other choices including many fine TV movies and mini-series but these are the films I would make my selection from.

John Ford’s 1958 film, The Last Hurrah remains my all-time favorite film about an election. Based on Edwin O’Connor’s best-selling 1956 novel about a long-time East Coast Irish mayor, the character is clearly based on Boston’s four time mayor, James Michael Curley, who also served a term as Governor of Massachusetts between his third and fourth terms as mayor.

Spencer Tracy has one of his best roles as the fictional Frank Skeffington who is running for re-election against an inexperienced opponent, a World War II veteran who smiles nicely and looks good on television. The fun is in the casting that includes Jeffrey Hunter as Skeffington’s nephew; Pat O’Brien, James Gleason and Edward Brophy as Skeffington’s cronies; Donald Crisp as a Catholic Cardinal who is opposed to the Mayor; Basil Rathbone and John Carradine as the film’s primary villains and Jane Darwell as an old lady who loves to go to funerals. The ending, which the real life Curley loved, evokes Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Already seen The Last Hurrah and not interested in seeing it again? A good alternative might be Raoul Walsh’s 1953 film, The Lion Is in the Streets with James Cagney (Ford’s original choice for Skeffington) as a Southern politician based on Louisiana’s Huey Long, the same character Broderick Crawford’s 1949 Oscar winning performance in All the King’s Men was based on. Barbara Hale and Anne Francis co-star.

Tracy was a potential candidate for President in Frank Capra’s earlier 1948 film, State of the Union with Katharine Hepburn and Angela Lansbury, which also captures the flavor of the day.

The smooth operator running for President that John Travolta plays in Mike Nichols’ 1998 film, Primary Colors is obviously patterned after President Clinton, as is Michael Douglas’ widowed president in Rob Reiner’s 1995 film, The American President. The latter is a nice, easy to take film to watch after a long, exhausting day. If you’re looking for something edgier, check out Warren Beatty’s motor-mouth candidate in 1998’s Bulworth or Reese Witherspoon’s evil, conniving high school candidate in Alexander Payne’s 1999 film, Election

Political disillusionment is the focus of Michael Ritchie’s 1972 film, The Candidate with an erstwhile performance from Robert Redford. Jerry Schatzberg’s 1979 film, The Seduction of Joe Tynan, written by and starring Alan Alda, is about the opposition to a Supreme Court appointment that helped bolster the career of Meryl Streep as Alda’s seductress.

The machinations of the U.S. Senate of a half century ago is on full display in Otto Preminger’s 1962 film, Advise & Consent with an all-star cast led by Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Walter Pidgeon, Don Murray, Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, and Burgess Meredith. A national political convention is the backdrop for Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1964 film, The Best Man with Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Margaret Leighton, Edie Adams and Lee Tracy as a former President obviously based on Harry Truman. John Frankenheimer’s 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate leads inexorably to a political assassination involving Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury.

D.W. Griffith’s 1930 film, Abraham Lincoln with Walter Huston and Kay Hammond was the great silent film director’s first talkie and the first talkie about the 16th President. Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film, Lincoln with Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field was the latest.

Alan J. Pakula’s landmark 1976 film, All the President’s Men is an absorbing account of the Nixon administration’s dirty tricks behind the Watergate break-in. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as reporters Woodward and Bernstein; Jason Robards as Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat lead an impressive cast in this film that plays like a whodunit even though we know who done it. A new two-disc Blu-ray edition will hit the streets next week.

Another film slated for Blu-ray re-issue next week is Oliver Stone’s 1991 film, JFK which is being presented as a 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition. No, it’s not the 50th anniversary of the film, but of the President’s assassination. The film itself is about New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s conspiracy theory investigation. You may not believe everything Stone tells you, but you will believe in the uniformly fine work of the cast led by Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman and Joe Pesci.

If you’re looking for a film in which Washington politics may have been as dirty as they’ve always been, but where one good man could make a difference, look no further than Frank Capra’s 1939 classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with James Stewart in one of his greatest performances as the idealistic young Senator who in the film’s climax does an all-night-long filibuster that succeeds in flouting corruption.

This week’s new DVD releases include the Blu-ray releases of The Best Years of Our Lives and The Bishop’s Wife.