The Great Dictator The Great Dictator made in 1940 by Charlie Chaplin was at the time a controversial film because it exposed Nazism and anti-Semitism with both humor and horror. In his film, Chaplin plays the two main characters: Adenoid Hynkel, the tyrannical dictator of Tomania and a Jewish barber persecuted by Storm Troopers in the ghetto. The movie begins in 1918, at the end of the First World War. The Jewish barber is fighting on the …showed first 75 words of 2604 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2604 total…and also Mussolini and its fascist party. However, the film ignores the situation in the pacific with Japan’s invasion of China and also the position of the United States during that time. Despite the controversy that this film aroused, it was voted one of the year's Ten Best in 1940 by The New York Times and deemed a success by the American public. To this day The Great Dictator remains one of the great classics.