The 32nd Best All-Time Film

(12th Pre-1973) 

The Great Dictator (1940) 

In today’s age and zeitgeist, it is even more incredible to think that Chaplin could make such a prescient film about Hitler. Looking back, we often think that people could not have helped but know how bad things were. They certainly didn’t know about the “final solution” outside of the centers of Nazi power until after the war. But it is often too hard to imagine just how corrupt the powers that be are. And even though it seems more and more possible that the people at the top could be certifiably mentally ill, we don’t want to admit such possibilities. What Chaplin did now seems inciteful. And yet, he went on to say, had he known just how bad things are, he would not have been able to make a satire about it.