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Modern Times

Director: Charlie Chaplin
Year: 1936
Run-time: 1 hr 27 min

- Charlie Chaplin took a five-year break between City Lights and this film, but in that time kept his focus on the American dream.  Modern Times feels like the film on this list that has more than any other tackled the Great Depression as a subject, and it's altogether strange but fitting that it would be Chaplin, the fading icon of the 20's, who would feel so contemporary.  This is remembered today for the wonderful opening scene set at an insane Metropolis-style factory, but the whole film is terrific, and open to all sorts of fascinating analysis.
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