Election

Election (1999) is Alexander Payne's razor-sharp satire you can watch online on iFILM. At an ordinary Midwestern high school, overachiever Tracy Flick is running for student council president completely unopposed, and civics teacher Jim McAllister hates the idea about as much as a person can hate anything.

To knock Tracy (Reese Witherspoon) off her pedestal, McAllister (Matthew Broderick) coaxes a good-natured football jock into the race. He also drags his own grudges, lies and bad decisions in with him. A toy student vote turns into a small, vicious war where the grown-up behaves worse than any teenager, and the most honest candidate is the one who has no idea what he signed up for.

Payne paints American ambition without an ounce of mercy for anyone, and Witherspoon, years before stardom, delivers one of the great comic performances of the decade. It stays funny right up to the point where you cringe for everybody on screen. Stream Election (1999) online on iFILM.