Popular reviews

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  Review by DirkH ★★★★★ 7

  I will always return to this film for that final monologue.

  It is one of the most beautifully written speeches ever put to film.

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  Review by Esteban Gonzalez ★★★★½ 6

  "I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible."

  That final five minute speech given by Chaplin shows his true genius as a director, actor, and screenwriter. He was capable of understanding better than anyone the social realities he was part of and made one of the best anti-Nazi propaganda films I've seen. Giving his character who had been silent up to that film such an important speech was such a powerful and historical moment in film history. I don't know why I always believed Chaplin was one of those directors that never managed to handle the transition from…

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 6

  Nothing less than a grand and startling picture; Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator is one of the best films involving Chaplin, even in spite of a somewhat disjointed narrative and some overlong stretches. The sense of melancholy and serene sadness by the end of it continues to send chills down my spine. It may not be perfect, but it certainly is one of the most important films ever made.

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  Review by Anika ★★★★★ 2

  When will a barber who looks like Trump save us?

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  Review by Wes ★★★★★

  "Listen..."

  anti-fascist art is and has always been invaluable to society, and The Great Dictator may be the crown jewel. this being chaplins first sound film not only elevates the elaborateness of the comedy but also the vital importance of why it's imperative to resist fascism, as the final speech can attest. this may be an old film, but it will never age.

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 2

  This is one of those films history judges, but I'm not sure how it judges it. Did it help us defeat Hitler? I've no idea. You hear all the time in relation to this film that Chaplin said he wouldn't've been able to make it if he knew the true horrors of the concentration camps at the time, which sorta encapsulates how the film feels: naive. A beautiful, naive fantasy, especially the ending, which is, admittedly, one helluva speech. Like Frank Capra's most sublime moments of innocent grandeur, the final speech in this is an earnest appeal to humane ideals, and that will tug at the hearts of the most cynical (and if it doesn't tug at your heart, if…

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  Review by Héctor ★★★★

  ironic how a silent film actor made the greatest movie speech of all time that is relevant even to today.

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  Review by Mary Conti ★★★★★ 3

  **Part of the Best Picture Project**

  It is amazing how time treats films. Some films lose their effect and meaning. Some stay the same. The Great Dictator gets stronger every day.

  Which is odd, because when you watch Charlie Chaplin's 1940 political satire, it seems very specific to the time, and is almost the same as nearly any other WWII era propaganda film. Chaplin's portrayal of Hitler is certainly over the top, but where he differs from other portrayals is that he's not completely a caricature. Instead, through all of the slapstick, there's something humanizing about the way Chaplin plays him. He's wonderfully naive, and just seems to have boyish dreams of being a world emperor.

  This is wonderfully shown…

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  Review by Rida ★★★ 9

  The Great Dictator was released at a time when people were anxious not to offend Hitler and Mussolini, and when discrimination against Jews was rampant but nobody imagined that it would end in one of the cruelest massacres in human history. Chaplin predicted it all, and for that alone, The Great Dictator is invaluable.

  But there are other things to consider, too. There's the fact that it's hard to laugh at atrocities referred to in such a matter-of-fact way ("I'll send you to a concentration camp"). I'm fully aware that hindsight is 20/20, and that Chaplin himself said that he would never have made a comedy on the Nazis if he knew the extent of their madness. That doesn't make…

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★ 2

  Not feeling well, so I did my usual sicky routine of staying in bed and taking care of classic movie blind spots. (I started this in college when I had mono; I watched GONE WITH THE WIND and THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI and any long movie I could get my hands on. It was great.) Earlier I did UGETSU and after a nap I watched THE GREAT DICTATOR. Probably a better act of defiance than a movie -- but WHAT an act of defiance, sprinkled liberally with some marvelous comic set-pieces (the World War I opening with the enormous canon and the grenade down the pants had me laughing out loud).

  The middle sags and the whole thing…

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  Review by Mario ★★★★★ 4

  Even after more than 80 years, this one is still brilliant.
  One Movie Every Day 2021

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★★ 3

  Charlie Chaplin's political satire and first actual sound film attracted feral denunciations from a broad spectrum of people, from Adolf Hitler to Benito Mussolini, so he was clearly doing something right. In truth, The Great Dictator sees him doing a considerable number of things right. The movie appeared when the United States was still officially at peace with Nazi Germany, with Chaplin depicting Hitler, here named Adenoid Hynkel, as an egotistical sociopath with misconceptions of grandeur.

  It features the outstanding Paulette Goddard, who was Chaplin's spouse at the time, as the champion of the Jewish ghetto along with a capable cast portraying a company of dominating and obnoxious aggressors all satirised by harsh-sounding German phonetics and by spoofing the tempo of the Italian language. Chaplin arranges all of the ridiculing in remarkable ways and cleverly parodies the cult of personality, which ultimately helped to remove Hitler's omnipotence when it was most required.