All the Way

All the Way (2016) is an HBO political drama you can watch online on iFILM, anchored by Bryan Cranston as Lyndon B. Johnson. The story picks up the moment gunfire in Dallas ends Kennedy's presidency and hands an unprepared vice president the most powerful office on earth. Director Jay Roach lets the whole film rest on one performance, and it holds.

What follows covers barely eleven months. A man half of Washington writes off as a placeholder sets out to push a sweeping civil rights bill through Congress — the law meant to dismantle segregation across the American South. Johnson bullies, flatters, bargains and leans on senators by phone and in back hallways, burning old friendships to do it. Around him stand Martin Luther King Jr. (Anthony Mackie), pressing for more and faster; his wife Lady Bird (Melissa Leo); and Southern senator Richard Russell (Frank Langella), who once treated Johnson almost like a son.

Adapted from Robert Schenkkan's stage play, the film wears its theatrical roots proudly: everything turns on talk, timing and the right squeeze at the right second. Cranston, who first played LBJ on Broadway, builds a crude, cunning, surprisingly fragile politician with no varnish, and the role landed him an Emmy nomination. Watch it if you're fascinated by how real power actually gets made. Stream All the Way (2016) online on iFILM.