Film

Modern Times

Name: Modern Times
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Released: 1936
Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford, Chester Conklin

Modern Times is Chaplin's farewell to silence — a nearly wordless comedy about a man ground up and delighted by industrial life, threaded with a tender, hopeful romance. It's slapstick as social commentary: conveyor belts, revolving doors, roller skates skimming the edge of disaster. Funny, sweet, occasionally bleak, it's for anyone who wants comedy with a conscience and a soft heart underneath the pratfalls.

TMDb rating

8.3

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The wildcard

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Buster Keaton's rival brand of genius: a projectionist who literally walks into the movie screen, with stunt work so precise it still looks impossible.

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Sullivan's Travels1941

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It Happened One Night1934

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Same moral engine as Chaplin's film, a single worker up against an indifferent system that can discard anyone, but pushed into the register of grim naturalism instead of comedy.

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