Game Change

Game Change dramatizes John McCain's 2008 Republican presidential campaign, focusing on his selection of Sarah Palin, the little-known governor of Alaska, as his running mate. The film follows McCain's strategists, notably campaign manager Steve Schmidt, as they bring Palin onto the ticket and prepare her for the national stage. Her inexperience with both politics and the media soon weighs on the campaign and those running it, straining the operation as the race against Barack Obama unfolds.

The film is based on the book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin and was made for HBO, produced by Tom Hanks's Playtone with Everyman Pictures. Jay Roach directed from a screenplay by Danny Strong, with Julianne Moore as Palin, Woody Harrelson as Schmidt, and Ed Harris as McCain. It is the tenth of the fourteen films Roach has directed in chronological order, arriving between The Campaign and Trumbo.

Released in 2012 and running 118 minutes, it drew a 7.1 out of 10 critics' rating from 43 reviews, alongside 7.4 from roughly 24,000 votes on IMDb and 6.9 from around 351 votes on TMDB, indicating a generally favorable response from both reviewers and audiences, with critics slightly more positive than the smaller TMDB sample.