10 Films Every Right-Winger Should Watch

Conservatives often have a bad name when it comes to popular culture. The Left have Tom Hanks, George Clooney and Bruce Springsteen. Scarlett Johansson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep. The Right? They have Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair (click here if you don’t know what I’m talking about) and Ted Nugent. As Ed West writes, ‘even the left’s murderers are cooler.’ Pinochet may have gotten Chilean inflation under control, but he can’t compare with Che Guevara’s icon status. Despite this, however, there are a few pieces of art that have an explicitly or implicitly Right-wing bent. Cinema is an unexpected treasure-trove of conservative culture, despite the liberal politics of Hollywood. So here is a list of ten films that conservatives can enjoy. They are in no particular order, and the list is by no means comprehensive, but it offers a good mix of more accessible films, as well as those that may appeal to budding Right-wing cinephiles.

Kingsman (2014)

This spy romp is unabashedly politically incorrect and is also one of the most populist films I’ve seen. The writer of the source material, Mark Millar, is a working-class Glaswegian Brexiteer whilst director Matthew Vaughn has a public school background. The combination of these two outlooks runs through the film which tackles class differences in an interesting way. Fun throughout, with plenty of action, the film’s populism is conveyed by the plot, which features globalist elites plotting to cull the general population in order to stop global warming. In the climactic finale, the heads of world leaders (including Barack Obama) explode into fireworks to the tune of Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’. The sequel film takes a more libertarian view and deals with the War on Drugs in a similarly irreverent manner.

Metropolitan (1990)

The debut film of director Whit Stillman (whose entire filmography could plausibly be on this list), Metropolitan is a comedy of manners about a group of young socialites in New York. It plays out like a Woody Allen movie, but one that’s written by a conservative WASP instead of a Jewish liberal. It’s all witty dialogue and love triangles and should be extremely relatable for a certain kind of Tory. Metropolitan features a debate about French socialism, a discussion about the social-climbing of the surrealists and a spirited defence of the bourgeoise. My favourite lines comes when the antagonist of the film, Tom Townsend, an outsider to the main friendship group is talking to his love interest, Audrey. Audrey is a reader of classic literature but Tom scoffs at her admiration of Jane Austen saying ‘nearly everything Jane Austen wrote is near ridiculous from today's perspective.’ Audrey offers the perfect comeback: 'Has it ever occurred to you that today, looked at from Jane Austen's perspective would look even worse?’ Now that’s a conservative sentiment if I ever heard one.

Cold War (2018)

Cold War is a black and white, Polish language film about the evils of Communism. Whilst Hollywood has made plenty of films about the horrors of Nazism, the exploration of the dangers of the socialism is typically left for filmmakers from post-communist countries. At a sleek 88 minutes, Cold War is a love story between a music director and a young singer. It’s oozes mid-century jazz cool, and follows the couple’s evolving relationship from the 1940s to the 1960s. It doesn’t explore the systems of communism but rather looks at the impact it had on individuals, on their relationships and on their art. A worthwhile if bittersweet watch.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

In my opinion this is Tarantino’s masterpiece, and it may be, if we are to believe him, his last proper movie. It’s a magnificent send-off, a nostalgia trip to the golden age of Hollywood that shows us what we missed out on.  Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, a fading actor, whilst Brad Pitt plays Cliff Booth, his loyal and charismatic stunt man. It’s all set to the backdrop of 1969 Hollywood, with bright neon lights and period music. The New Yorker accused the movie of having an ‘obscenely regressive vision.’ This is, as you might expect, an overstatement, but the film does have a reactionary tone. Dalton and Booth represent the last vestiges of the old (and in Tarantino’s eyes, superior) order. They are Old Hollywood, but they are also old-fashioned masculinity. The end of the movie is an example of this. Tarantino re-imagines tragic history as a fairy-tale. The forces of anarchy and evil, ‘the hippies’ are resoundingly beaten by the male heroes. Order and goodness triumphs, if only in our imagination.

A Hidden Life (2019)

Terrence Mallick is one of the most thoughtful directors working today. A Harvard-educated philosopher and scholar of Heidegger his films are often deeply spiritual and poetic. They look like nothing else, with free form editing and floating camera work transporting the viewer into another world, or more accurately making them more aware of their own world. A Hidden Life follows Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer, who became a conscientious objector during the Second World War. For his pacifism he is killed by the Nazis and later beatified by the Catholic Church. The film is gorgeous looking, shot on location in the Austrian Alps. It has a dreamy quality and makes you ponder questions of faith and of our place in the universe. It’s about an individual standing up for what is right against a faceless machine of totalitarian oppression and is thus very much worth watching.

The Incredibles (2004)

If you’ve seen any movie on this list, it is probably this one. Brad Bird’s animated superhero film is a classic of modern animation, but it can also be interpreted as an Objectivist screed. The titular family are forced to hide their powers by the government which seeks to regulate and restrict superheroes. There are many scenes were the punishing effects of this are shown. Dash, the super-speedy son is forced to throw away a race at school, because taking advantage of his powers wouldn’t be considered fair. There’s also a critique of participation trophies thrown in for good measure. Brad Bird, the director, has admitted to reading Ayn Rand, though he refuses to say that the film is directly inspired by her philosophy. Even if it isn’t, the message still resonates. As the film’s dastardly villain exclaims, ‘when everyone’s super, no one will be.’

Dunkirk (2017)

This film is more patriotic than openly Right-wing, yet nonetheless deserves a place on this list. Christopher Nolan’s previous films already displayed a conservative bent. The Dark Knight was a commentary on turbulent politics of the war on terror, whilst the The Dark Knight Rises looked at the populist politics of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Dunkirk, however, is a straight-forward (for a Nolan movie) re-telling of the evacuation of Dunkirk during the Second World War, where victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat. For me it's an example of cinema’s uniqueness as an art form; it’s ability to combine high art with commercial considerations. The final scene, with Elgar playing and the flaming Spitfires shows Britain’s transfer of power to the United States, becoming Athens to America’s Rome. I teared up when I first saw it.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a film about the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, that tells his life story and features segments of many of his books. One of the most influential writers of his age, Mishima was a gay, bodybuilding Japanese ultra-nationalist. He was a paradox and he sought to turn his own life story into a work of art. At the age of 45, shortly after completing the final novel in a series, Mishima and four other men, all members of his personal paramilitary group, entered a Japanese military base. They barricaded the office of the leadership and Mishima made a speech on the balcony, appealing to the soldiers to start a coup to restore the Emperor. The speech was met with derision and Mishima realised that his attempts were futile, and committed seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide. The film retells this dramatic story, but cleverly intersperses it with Mishima’s own writing which serves to heighten the themes even more. With breath-taking cinematography and a hypnotic soundtrack by Phillip Glass, the film uses its art to highlight Mishima’s extraordinary art.

Dragged Across Concrete (2018)

Director S. Craig Zahler makes conservative films outside the Hollywood system. They tend to be low budget, action flicks that star older actors who appeal to Middle America. Zahler’s brilliant debut, the Western Bone Tomahawk, featured Kurt Russell, whilst Dragged Across Concrete stars Mel Gibson. The film is a neo-noir and Gibson plays a cop that’s been accused of police brutality. That in itself was enough for critics to dub the film ‘racist’, yet this does Zahler a huge disservice. Dragged Across Concrete is a deliberately paced, multi-faceted look at the realities of policing in America. There are scenes of Vince Vaugh and Gibson chatting in their car, and these are punctuated with bursts of frightening, visceral violence. All of Zahler’s film are worth checking out, but Dragged Across Concrete is a culmination of his unique film-making ethos.

Gone With the Wind (1939)

The greatest movie ever made, or at least the highest grossing. Gone With the Wind is a four-hour epic based on Margaret Mitchell’s bestselling novel. Set during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Period, it follows Scarlett O’Hara the ambitious and strong-willed daughter of a plantation owner who has to decide which man she truly loves. Gone With the Wind covers the whole breadth and depth of the human experience – every time to watch it, you find something new. It looks beautiful and is outstandingly cast with Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh giving some of the best-ever screen performances. In the light of the George Floyd protests, the film was pulled from streaming services and re-examined for its misleading portrayal of slavery and the Confederacy. Despite these issues however it remains a masterpiece – its story is eternal. At its heart, it is about the loss of a way of life. As the opening titles remind us, the Old South ‘is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization gone with the wind…’ If you watch any of these films, make it this one.

Do you have any burning suggestions? Why not put them in the comments below.