Perhaps no current filmmaker has made more provocative films about American history than Oliver Stone. In this book, Carl Freedman gives a detailed and nuanced account of the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush as fictionalized in Stone’s biographical films JFK, Nixon, and W. Synthesizing film criticism with political and historical analysis, American Presidents and Oliver Stone transcends the limitations of formalism and empiricism, reflecting on both Stone’s achievements as a filmmaker and American politics of the past sixty years.

Offering detailed historical perspectives alongside careful aesthetic criticism, Freedman explores how Stone uses melodrama, tragedy, and farce to transform politics into national mythology. Wide-ranging, accessible, and highly original, American Presidents is sure to engage anyone interested in the intersection of American politics and cinema.