Movie · 1998 · Comedy, Drama, Crime, Thriller, Romance · 1h 48m · R · English
Curator score: 4.9/10 (47.2K ratings)
Brace yourself. This politician is about to tell the truth!
Overview
A suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the opportunity to be bluntly honest with his voters by affecting the rhythms and speech of hip-hop music and culture.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.9/10
IMDb: 6.8/10
Letterboxd: 3.40/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Metacritic: 75
TMDB: 6.3/10
Director
Warren Beatty
Production
20th Century Fox, Mulholland Productions
Cast
Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Kimberly Deauna Adams, Vinny Argiro, Sean Astin, Kirk Baltz, Ernie Lee Banks, Amiri Baraka, Christine Baranski, Adilah Barnes, Graham Beckel, Brandon N. Bowlin, Mongo Brownlee, Thomas Jefferson Byrd, J. Kenneth Campbell, Scott Michael Campbell, Jann Carl, Kerry Catanese, Don Cheadle, Dave Allen Clark
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, weirdly prophetic political satire with enough audacity and energy to linger, even when its tonal swings, racial politics, and vanity-project excess make it messy. It’s worth watching for the sheer risk-taking, the 1998 liberal panic attack it captures, and the way it turns campaign rhetoric into performance art.
Best for
Viewers who like politically charged satire
Fans of messy but fascinating late-90s studio oddities
People interested in media, race, and electoral cynicism
Audiences who enjoy movies that are more interesting than polished
Skip if
You want a clean, balanced political comedy
You’re sensitive to clumsy or dated racial commentary
You prefer tightly controlled tonal consistency
You dislike self-consciously eccentric star vehicles
Overview
Bulworth is a movie that feels like it was built to explode in public. Warren Beatty takes a suicidal senator, strips away the usual campaign varnish, and turns him into a walking indictment of the political class. The result is part satire, part fever dream, part cultural provocation, and it still has enough bite to feel alive decades later.
Worth noting
What makes it memorable is not finesse but nerve. It lurches between romance, crime, political farce, and hip-hop-inflected monologue with the confidence of a film that thinks it has discovered a new language. Sometimes that confidence pays off in genuinely sharp observations; sometimes it curdles into awkwardness and self-regard.
Bottom line
Even so, it remains an unusually watchable artifact of late-90s American liberal anxiety. If you’re interested in films that are politically messy but culturally revealing, this is a fascinating one to sit with, even when it makes you cringe.
Top Letterboxd reviews
tru (3.5★) · 863 likes
Biden
Will Menaker (4★) · 500 likes
Brilliant and completely ahead of its time satire of the liberal conscience at the doorstep of a new millennium.
Episode out tonight featuring the legendary Gangsta Boo of Three Six Mafia.
Will Sloan · 428 likes
The politics of this movie are basically on-point, which is unfortunately still not enough to make this a good movie, since the main reason it exists is because Warren Beatty clearly just learned about black people and wanted to share that fascination. Still: this movie has stayed with me while many other more competent films have not.
manilazic (5★) · 315 likes
“Come on, now, let me hear that dirty word: SOCIALISMMMMMM!”
SilentDawn (4.5★) · 298 likes
85
"Miss, you be really honest with me and don't spare my feelings... do you have any more of the little crispy crab cakes?"