Commentary: 10 on-screen political thrillers that stood out in a year of upheaval and partisanship

Political thrillers have been a staple of popular culture since the 1960s, when the Cold War threw conspiracy theory-loving writers into overdrive, and television and film are no exception.This year, however, has seen a marked abundance of stories dealing with government scheming, corruption, incompetence and general mayhem.(Make of that what you will.) Some have given contemporary resonance to universal classics — assassination, mass casualty events, global annihilation — while others have taken veiled but obvious aim at recent or current leaders and events.Landing at a time when conspiracy theories, nationalism and charges of treason have become the lingua franca of politics and people are regularly shoved into unmarked cars by ICE agents, some of the plotlines seem less far-fetched than in other eras.

But the beauty of the political thriller is that there’s almost always someone able to fight back and ensure that justice prevails.Here are a few that stood out.

In his first venture into television, Robert De Niro plays one-term former President George Mullen who is pulled out of retirement after a worldwide cyber attack kills millions.Granted every nonconstitutional power imaginable, he is tasked with finding the perpetrators before they follow through on their threatened second attack.

The nonpartisan, antiextremist message is muddy if essentially important, but with De Niro heading a stellar cast that includes Joan Allen, Jesse Plemons, Angela Bassett, Connie Britton, Gaby Hoffmann, Matthew Modine and Bill Camp playing all manner of steely D.C.power players, the attempt to generalize what should be specific is easy to forgive.

(Read the review.) After Special Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K.Brown) finds the murdered body of U.S.

President (and good friend) Cal Bradford (James Marsden), uncovering the assassin is the least of his problems.What appears to be an idyllic community is in fact a hidden bunker where the elite have sheltered since a global ...