Our next movie dealing with real life political events is 2008's Milk, which won Sean Penn his second Oscar, and was by far the most deserving of his two wins (not a huge fan of Mystic River). He carries this movie as famed gay rights activist Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, as San Francisco's city supervisor. The movie's actually not all that different from Selma in its attempt to document a particular time and place, recreating the atmosphere of late 1970's San Francisco and the political battles the gay community waged against people like anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant. Gus Van Sant directed it with a sure hand, blending real life footage and fictional narrative seamlessly, but Penn's performance is utterly dominating- you don't see him in any inch of this movie, it's all Harvey Milk. One of the great biopic performances ever.
Original Trailer:
