Film
Our Brand Is Crisis
Other titles called Our Brand Is Crisis: the 2015 film.
A sharp-eyed documentary about American political consultants exporting their ruthless campaign playbook to Bolivia's 2002 election. It's a master class in spin and manipulation, and a reckoning with what happens when Western PR tactics collide with genuine democratic stakes. Essential viewing on how elections are really won.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like seeing strategists at work up close, the war-room banter, the polling and the cold arithmetic of persuasion, and you're comfortable making up your own mind about the ethics.
Skip it if you want a patient portrait of a country's politics; this is a consultant's-eye view of one election, and its focus on the campaign men can feel narrow and self-admiring.
What it asks of you: Expect a brisk 87 minutes that stays close to the talk in hotel rooms and offices, with sparse narration and no urge to soften what it shows.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The War Room1993
Follows Clinton's 1992 campaign with remarkable access to Carville and Stephanopoulos. You see the machinery in motion, the real-time panic and problem-solving that shapes a presidency. Foundational for understanding modern political theatre.
But It's celebratory of the very mechanics that Our Brand Is Crisis critiques. If you want the darker take first, watch that one.
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear2004
Three-part BBC series on how fear and narrative shape politics in America and the Muslim world. Shares Our Brand Is Crisis's obsession with how stories are manufactured and sold. Deeply intelligent and unsettling.
But Dense and demanding. Requires your full attention and assumes political sophistication.
Taxi to the Dark Side2008
Alex Gibney documentary about how American policy decisions ripple into real suffering in Afghanistan. Same director's interest in institutional harm and unexamined consequences, but with higher stakes and darker conclusions.
But Heavy subject matter. This is about torture and death, not campaign strategy, so the tone is grimmer.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Our Brand Is Crisis
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Battle of Chile: Part I1975
Both are about American and international power shaping Latin American democracy. Our Brand Is Crisis is the sequel—what happens when the US learned to sell rather than overthrow.
Patricio Guzmán's three-part documentary about the 1973 Chilean coup. Shot in real time as democracy collapses. A direct precursor to the political upheaval in Bolivia that Our Brand Is Crisis documents—same region, same era, same colonial dynamic. Shows what happens when interference succeeds.
But Fifty years old, shot on video, in Spanish with subtitles. Demands patience and historical literacy. Devastating in ways that don't resolve.
More like this (6)
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism2004
Robert Greenwald's investigation into Fox News as a political machine. Same era as Our Brand Is Crisis, same obsession with how media manufactures reality. Feels like a natural companion piece about American narrative control.
But Explicitly polemical. If you want pure journalism rather than persuasion, this leans harder into argument than Our Brand Is Crisis does.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room2005
Released the same year, same Gibney-style forensic dissection of American institutions convinced of their own brilliance. The hubris is identical; only the business model changes. Both are about expertise weaponized.
But Corporate fraud doesn't have the political urgency of election manipulation. Feels more like a heist thriller than a warning.
The Fog of War2003
Errol Morris interviewing Robert McNamara about Vietnam and decision-making at scale. Explores how powerful men rationalize consequences. Complements Our Brand Is Crisis's interest in how ideas become policy become harm.
But A single interview in a room. Structurally static, and McNamara's reflections don't always satisfy the questions being asked.
Spellbound2002
A documentary about a national spelling bee championship. Seems unrelated, but it's about performance, pressure, the machinery of competition, and how ordinary people navigate systems designed to rank them. Unexpectedly thematic.
But It's obliquely connected at best. If you want direct political content, this will feel like a detour.
The Yes Men Fix the World2009
Both dissect how narrative and identity can be weaponized. Our Brand Is Crisis shows professionals selling lies; The Yes Men show artists weaponizing those same techniques for accountability.
Activists impersonate World Bank and Shell executives to expose corporate duplicity through performance. It's anti-propaganda as performance art, using the same rhetorical machinery that Our Brand Is Crisis critiques but turned against power. Funny, angry, ingenious.
But Activists impersonating officials is ethically messy. The film celebrates trickery, which bothers some viewers. Tone is almost comedic when discussing serious subjects.
City Lights1931
Our Brand Is Crisis is about the death of sincerity in public life. City Lights is sincerity at its most defenseless. Watch them as opposites—one about manipulation, one about genuine feeling with nowhere to hide.
Chaplin's tramp falls for a blind woman. Seems absurd as a pairing, but it's about the performance of identity and the gap between what we present and what we are. Silent, physically precise, utterly sincere. A reminder of cinema before spin, before the ability to manufacture consent.
But 1931 silent film. If you want something made this century, this is the opposite direction. Requires tolerance for melodrama and patience with pacing.
People
Cast
James CarvilleSelf
Evo MoralesSelf- Tad DevineSelf
- Robert ShrumSelf
Directing
- Rachel BoyntonDirector