Tracy Flick is running unopposed for this year’s high school student election. But Jim McAllister has a different plan. Partly to establish a more democratic election, and partly to satisfy some deep personal anger toward Tracy, Jim talks football player Paul Metzler to run for president as well.

From director Alexander Payne (Sideways, Nebraska) comes Election, at once a modern classic and a darkly comic view of American politics. Beguilingly (and brilliantly irritatingly) led by Reese Witherspoon’s irrepressible pluck, this is an enduring portrait of a country at war with itself.