01
To Be or Not to Be
Why this pick
Like Chaplin’s satire, it turns Nazi menace into audacious comedy while preserving genuine stakes, using performance, impersonation and theatrical wit to make its anti-fascist punch.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1940 2h 5m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
The Great Dictator
ComedyWar
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved The Great Dictator, try these.
01
02
King of Hearts
Why this pick
Its buoyant, humane anti-war fable shares The Great Dictator’s belief that innocence and comic absurdity can expose the madness of militarism.
03
Monsieur Verdoux
Why this pick
Chaplin trades the barber’s warmth for a darker, sharper social satire, retaining his precise visual comedy and moral outrage at a world that rationalizes cruelty.
04
The Tin Drum
Why this pick
A far more unsettling but deeply satirical view of fascism, using grotesque humor, stylized imagery and a defiant outsider perspective to confront collective moral blindness.
05
The Death of Stalin
Why this pick
Its rapid-fire black comedy finds cowardice, vanity and bureaucratic chaos beneath dictatorship—an acerbic modern counterpart to Chaplin’s use of laughter against tyranny.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
A murderous dictator and a sweet Jewish barber become entangled together during the height of WWII.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Jack Oakie
Benzino Napaloni, Dictator of Bacteria
Reginald Gardiner
Commander Schultz
Billy Gilbert
Field Marshal Herring
Rudolph Anders
Tomanian Commandant at Osterlich / Robert O. Davis
George Lynn
Commander of Storm Troopers
Charlie Chaplin
Adenoid Hynkel, Dictator of Tomania / A Jewish Barber
Henry Daniell
Garbitsch
Paulette Goddard
Hannah