The Great Dictator

An anonymous Jewish barber returns to his country after World War I, unaware that his nation has fallen under the dictatorship of the Hynkel regime, a demagogic leader who will pursue him due to their striking physical resemblance. Charles Chaplin broke his silence—The Great Dictator was his first fully spoken film—to deliver in 1940 the boldest satire of Nazism produced by Hollywood, while Hitler was still alive and the war had just begun.

The Great Dictator is the most courageous political act in Hollywood history: Chaplin parodied Hitler when no one else in the industry dared. The final speech is one of the great oratorical pieces of the twentieth century ever filmed. Timeless.