Synopsis

Widowed President Andrew Shepherd begins a relationship with environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade while trying to pass a crime-control bill and protect his reelection campaign. Their romance becomes political ammunition when an ambitious opponent attacks Sydney's past and questions the president's judgment. Shepherd must decide whether to retreat from the relationship or publicly defend both Sydney and his principles.

Factoids & Trivia

• Robert Redford was originally attached to play President Shepherd. He remained involved as a producer after Michael Douglas took the role.

• The Clinton administration allowed the cast and production design team to visit the White House five times. Those visits helped shape the film's White House interiors.

• Camp David is not generally open to film productions. The Camp David sequences were recreated using reference photographs from the Nixon era, along with extensive set design.

• Aaron Sorkin appears briefly as an aide in a bar.

• The film earned an Academy Award nomination for Marc Shaiman's original musical or comedy score.

• In 2002, the American Film Institute ranked the film No. 75 on its list of America's greatest screen love stories.

• Material that Sorkin developed for the film later helped inspire his television series The West Wing, which premiered in 1999.