8. The Great Dictator

The physical humor of Chaplin holds up. Each bit is a study in pacing, raising the stakes, and finding tension to drive the jokes.

There’s also the scene here where dictator Adenoid Hynkel dances with a balloon globe. Every movement is perfectly calibrated. Each shot lasts just long enough to keep you in the moment while still including cuts to perfect the arc of the globe from bounce to bounce.

But then comes the speech at the end, where Chaplin tears into fascism and warmongering, and the beating heart of this movie lies bare. Yes, it’s making fun of Hitler. But it’s doing so to show that the ideas of men like him shouldn’t be taken seriously.

The movie may be over 80 years old, but the playbook for demagogues hasn’t changed. Fascists are petty, small men who break their promises to those who lift them up: “Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!”