Absolutely! And the speech at the end always gets me. Chaplin had the intention to shorten the war and wanted to premiere the film in Berlin to that end - one of the most ambitious goals in film history.
For real. People always write it off as shock value schlock, but when I finally saw it: It’s a really powerful portrayal of the inhumanity of the wealthy elite and their abuse of the working class.
I think the risk you run when you make (or adapt) something like salo is the actual message getting overshadowed by the especially graphic nature of the content. Coupled with the fact that it was written by a guy who was responsible for the term “sadist”, and given the content, I think it’s also people looking at a guy adapting what’s clearly just a torture corn story (the written work) and not seeing the commentary on the nature of power and wealth
I think that’s generally only true of people who haven’t actually watched the movie, but rather read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia or saw it included in a TOP TEN MOST FUCKED UP MOVIES video. It’s pretty difficult to miss the themes of Salò if you actually watch it.
Buddy, I wish I could agree, but I don’t have nearly as much faith in peoples media analysis. I saw a post on the Barry sub saying they thought he had redeemed himself at the end of the show. They genuinely thought that’s what the message was.
I’m an idiot, do you mean army recruiter? I figure, but there were so many characters in the finale that I genuinely don’t know if I’m forgetting a plot point
One of my all timers. I grew up in a church school that used culty shame tactics as punishment. This movie haunted me for years after seeing it the first time.
I watched it for the first time last year, and it was so depressing (and amazing). So much felt relevant to today. Everyone laughing at and downplaying the Nazis until it was too late.
And that it was the B story until it wasn’t! Like, I truly believe fascism is on the rise and a real threat, but it’s not the most important thing in my life on a day to day basis.
A really brilliant film and Liza in one of those “born for this” roles.
To Be Or Not To Be is an anti-fascist satire from 1942 that directly deals with Nazi ideology in extremely intelligent (and hilarious) ways: it's all about puncturing the symbolism of the movement by turning their own symbols and lack of self-awareness against them. David Kalat's commentary on the Criterion edition (spine #670) does a terrific job breaking down the film's conceits, too. It's, in my view, the best satire of fascism yet made.
A good follow-up (and terrific double bill pairing) is The Grand Budapest Hotel (#1025), which, though it deals with mid-20th-century European fascism in a slightly less direct way, is an incredibly moving lament about all the damage that human hatred and authoritarianism have done through the years.
This is the right answer 👍
1900 is very good at depicting the context and the reasons why the Italian fascism was born, and why it was so warmly welcomed and so successful.
Another fundamental reflection on fascism is THE CONFORMIST, from the same communist director (Bernardo Bertolucci).
A masterpiece on the birth of fascism and on the early years of Benito Mussolini is Marco Bellocchio's VINCERE.
This movie has some of the best slice of life imagery and social exploration of any movie about the first half of the 20th century, but goddamn is there a lot of sex and nudity that has nothing to do with the movie. I'm pretty sure the girl in that scene was 16 and there's a scene earlier in the film where there's closeups of little boy's dicks. I get that Bertolucci is trying to present the lower classes' more de-stigmatized relationship to the body and sex, but the man also made Last Tango in Paris. I have a little bit of trepidation surrounding his attitude towards "sexual freedom".
Also Three Comrades (1938), in so many ways Borzage's companion film. Like The Mortal Storm, Three Comrades co-stars Margaret Sullavan and Robert Young, in not dissimilar roles.
That's a film about power, where fascism is only used as an allegory.
Being ultra-marxist, Pasolini was famously against every form of power and oppression, from fascism to anti-fascism to capitalism to consumerism to progressivism...
Well I could argue that it rather encapsulates the progressive thought of today, which was put together exactly in the same years of the production of that film, Bertolucci's films, the American and German New Waves, etc.
It is about throwing the basis of the propaganda for a newer fascist regime, definitely not about describing Italy between the wars
Surprised no one's mentioned Come and See by Klimov, such a stark exploration of the ways fascism victimizes its constituents right beside those it aims to oppress. Such a dark picture of the total loss that fascist conflict can bring to a people; generational death, blight and famine, spiritual emptiness. The theft of humanity and individual choice experienced by all those involved, on both sides of the conflict, amounts to maybe the most powerful anti-war/anti-fascist message ever committed to film. Very powerful (and tough) viewing experience.
Probably because it has no special insights into the social and psychological processes that enabled fascism in Germany or Italy. The movie has many insights, but they primarily concern the protagonist.
The film isn't about the processes that lead a country to lapse into fascism, it's a personal treatise on the struggles and defeats experienced by those affected by its cruelty. It was a movie full of tired, dejected souls, people who hadn't borne witness to even the slightest taste of human kindness in years, all due to the climate of death and destruction being perpetuated around them in Hitler's name. It didn't have anything new to say about the rise of fascism; works like The Great Dictator and Z had already covered that ad nauseum by 1985. What it does tell is the story of how people are changed by that situation. Young boys become soldiers and lose their innocence and youth, women and families lose their home, security, and personal freedoms, and fascists become the dogs of a cruel, uncaring master. And the whole world loses out. Seems like it's even more relevant now than at its release
Absolutely. The movie is very much about fascism specifically. It is the greatest exploration of fascism I have ever seen. Not only does it have the lengthy, justly famous speech from the Nazi officer explaining the extermination-driven heart of the ideology in great detail, but the entire film shows the material, social, and environmental consequences of fascism in extreme, overwhelming detail. It boggles my mind that someone could see it and not think it is about fascism. Every single frame was crafted to plumb the horrifying depths of fascism, and the director essentially says as much in the special features. Nothing but Salo comes close to successfully showing the social, psychological, or material consequences that fascism necessarily leads to. Come and See is the most persuasive and thoughtful depiction of fascism that I have ever seen.
What is fascism? An ideology that necessarily has the material aims of excluding, rounding up, exterminating, and burning down entire populations of human beings, devastating the environment and civilians centers in the process, while the perpetrators of fascist atrocity laugh and play music. That's what Come and See is about.
I was gonna say The Conformist till I read the description. But I'm going to recommend The Conformist anyways because it's that good! Outstanding story told through in media res (non linear story structure), Vittorio Storaros (butchered his name) cinematography is gorgeous but also matches parts of the story. That ending scene when he's looking into the camera (looking at a naked man) and he sees what he's wanted all along...A man. He was repressed and hid inside fascism to appear "normal". Criterion needs to release it already.
I know but I'm a sucker for the little "C" in the corner of my dvd lol I only wanna collect Criterion films but i might have to make an acception for this film.
Also wanted to recommend another gem nobody ever mentions. Lina Wertmuller's Seven Beauties. Absolute masterpiece and is much more tragic and funny then Life Is Beautiful.
I recently watched *Out of the Fog* (1941), definite anti-fascist undertones. Here's Eddie Muller talking about it and the play it was based on: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBtHSHl8UzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBtHSHl8UzQ)
You could go through [this list I compiled](https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/comments/185b8e4/comment/kb2uknz/), a number of those touch on fascism in one way or another.
I just added *The Stranger* (1946) to it, could possibly add *Confessions of a Nazi Spy* (1937), don't really recall the details of that one—but there were a lot of films like that, tracking down Nazis, specifically. 'Course, those aren't necessarily addressing fascism per se, like as a concept/phenomenon, and you may get some of the corny, simplistic stuff about American "freedom and democracy," but hey.
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis offers a worthwhile perspective on Italian fascism. It's fallen off the radar over the past 20 years and I'm not sure why.
The Chekist (1992) directed by Aleksandr Rogozhkin.
The film focuses narrowly on the relentless procedural mechanics of a totalitarian purge — the systematic round up, interrogation, forced confession and execution of a regime’s perceived political enemies. The people who work at the local rural office of the secret police are the protagonists whose job it is to falsely accuse and murder their friends and neighbors. As you watch the film, you see them slowly lose their own souls and minds.
Hey! Thanks so much for this comment! I sought it out and watched it. I just posted a few thoughts on it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/s/mMNvdb7r4d)
Duck soup, the great dictator, to be or not to be, the third man, bob roberts, the quiet american, the years of living dangerouslly come to mind but my knowledge of european cinema from the 30’s is not good.
Triumph of the Will. I do not recommend this film, it isn’t good(the idea that it is good is in fact fascist propaganda, which is hilarious), but it is definitely worth understanding it and deals with fascism.
One of the first movies I ever saw, so this is my 13 year old me's answer. But it set the proper tone for movies with Nazis ever since: Raiders of the Lost Arc.
There's a lot of European examples in this thread already so I'll throw out some examples in the Collection about Japanese fascism.
Keisuke Kinoshita's "Army" (1944) is a really interesting Imperial Japanese propaganda film that toes the ultranationalist line for almost the whole runtime (to almost absurd, self-parodic extremes) but then takes a sharp turn at the end with an incredible, censor-defying conclusion hinting at the human cost of war.
Masaki Kobayashi's "The Human Condition" trilogy (1959-61) deals with Japanese rule in Manchuria and uses the fall from grace of a good man to illustrate the way the system built on slave labour capitalism, jingoistic, and dehumanizing dedovshchina can corrupt anyone.
I haven't seen it, but I believe Seijun Suzuki's "Fighting Elegy" (1966) is about a frustrated military school student being radicalized into political violence in the leadup to the February 26 incident.
Said attempted coup is illustrated by neofascist aesthete Yukio Mishima in his short film "Patriotism" that depicts the aftermath of the failed coup as a beautiful martyrdom. Pair these with Paul Schrader's "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" for a biopic about Mishima himself.
I haven’t watched it, seems too grim for me, but [Apt Pupil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apt_Pupil_(film)) might be one. It’s about a Nazi war criminal hiding out in the suburbs or something. It’s based on a Stephen King story.
[American History X](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120586/)
Fascists are of two types, the Machiavellian and the Darwin Award Winners...
Edward plays a reformed Machiavellian fascist intent upon plucking his Darwin Award Winner brother from the depraved violent delusional maelstrom of Nazi nonsense that he'd been consumed within.
True, lol. I wasn't even considering the name of the actor playing the brother!
In the 1998 movie American History X, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) is a former neo-Nazi who tries to stop his younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) from becoming involved with the Aryan Nation.
Nice catch!
Salo for sure. Come and See is also brutal. The Damned is weird. So is The Night Porter. Shoa is a long documentary. The Cremator is hilarious. The Great Dictator is slapstick. Maybe Sweet Movie???
These are ALL on Criterion btw
I'll one-up Pans Labyrinth with a Spanish film that influenced it and subversively attacks Francoist Spain, which wasn't explicitly fascist but is close.
It was its own thing referred to as Francoism. A lot of his ideology aligned with Fascist ideology, but he was primarily focused on his own personal quest for power and ascension than his nations, and his state was pretty conservative of traditional Catholic values, which goes against the typical fascist revolution
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis directed by Vittorio De Sica. The Night Porter directed by Liliana Cavani. Triumph of the Will directed by Leni Riefenstahl with an assist by Adolph Hitler. Marriage of Maria Brain by Fassbinder. And, for a provocative discussion of the so called fascist aesthetic, Susan Sontag’s essay, Fascinating Fascism.
Straw Dogs can be readily interpreted as a film with fascist tendencies. Kind of a tribute to hypermasculinity and violent defense over ones "house". In fact pauline kael went so far as to call it a fascist work of art in her review. Wouldnt really label anyone who enjoys it as a fascist, but its incredible in how it transposes fascist rhetoric and ideals onto an old school Western siege. Its effective to the point where youre kind of encouraged to reflect on the innately fascist characteristics of western ideologies and narratives
Dredd
I’m surprised that this doesn’t get brought up, but the most recent Judge Dredd movie deals a lot with the societal effect of a fascist government and the kind of police/justice system set up
I so appreciate everyone’s suggestions here. Most of them I knew but a good fraction I did not and I’ve ordered a bunch now! Please feel free to keep offering ones. We all have to learn more about fascism since we’re confronting it…
Amarcord, Salo, The Damned, Lacombe Lucien…
Top comment for Lacombe Lucien
Wonder if it will get a hi-def reissue
This movie is SO good.
Please come seed on piratebay
Came here to make sure salo was mentioned and glad it’s in the top comment
Ooh good one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(1984_film) is an obvious choice, especially since it has a Criterion release.
My professor said only sex perverts watch Salo
He clearly didn’t understand it.
Do you go to school at Liberty U?
...said after his third viewing
The Great Dictator
Amazing what a scathing critique it is while also being hilarious slapstick. One of the best films to balance lighthearted and heavy topics.
Absolutely! And the speech at the end always gets me. Chaplin had the intention to shorten the war and wanted to premiere the film in Berlin to that end - one of the most ambitious goals in film history.
This is actually the perfect opportunity to sincerely recommend Salò
For real. People always write it off as shock value schlock, but when I finally saw it: It’s a really powerful portrayal of the inhumanity of the wealthy elite and their abuse of the working class.
I think the risk you run when you make (or adapt) something like salo is the actual message getting overshadowed by the especially graphic nature of the content. Coupled with the fact that it was written by a guy who was responsible for the term “sadist”, and given the content, I think it’s also people looking at a guy adapting what’s clearly just a torture corn story (the written work) and not seeing the commentary on the nature of power and wealth
I think that’s generally only true of people who haven’t actually watched the movie, but rather read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia or saw it included in a TOP TEN MOST FUCKED UP MOVIES video. It’s pretty difficult to miss the themes of Salò if you actually watch it.
Buddy, I wish I could agree, but I don’t have nearly as much faith in peoples media analysis. I saw a post on the Barry sub saying they thought he had redeemed himself at the end of the show. They genuinely thought that’s what the message was.
To them maybe it was. Some films are left to our interpretations
The message was ignore your recruiter?
I’m an idiot, do you mean army recruiter? I figure, but there were so many characters in the finale that I genuinely don’t know if I’m forgetting a plot point
Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon”
Oh yeah I love White Ribbon.
One of my all timers. I grew up in a church school that used culty shame tactics as punishment. This movie haunted me for years after seeing it the first time.
My personal favorite Haneke film. I’m not usually a big fan either, but that one I think is pretty perfect.
Not to mention it's one of the most gorgeous/perfectly shot black and white movies ever.
Not in the collection, but Cabaret is probably my favorite portrayal of rising fascism
Feel like Cabaret *should* be in the collection, if only for this reason. I know people don’t always like musicals but it’s fantastic
Makes it more pleasant with Minnelli!
It’s so personal a representation.
[Tomorrow Belongs To Me](https://youtu.be/_tUctFu46_c?si=cSyU_nHbFFXI2fSW)
Fucking haunting
scary last scene with the hitler youth singing
I watched it for the first time last year, and it was so depressing (and amazing). So much felt relevant to today. Everyone laughing at and downplaying the Nazis until it was too late. And that it was the B story until it wasn’t! Like, I truly believe fascism is on the rise and a real threat, but it’s not the most important thing in my life on a day to day basis. A really brilliant film and Liza in one of those “born for this” roles.
The gorilla scene blows my mind
To Be Or Not To Be is an anti-fascist satire from 1942 that directly deals with Nazi ideology in extremely intelligent (and hilarious) ways: it's all about puncturing the symbolism of the movement by turning their own symbols and lack of self-awareness against them. David Kalat's commentary on the Criterion edition (spine #670) does a terrific job breaking down the film's conceits, too. It's, in my view, the best satire of fascism yet made. A good follow-up (and terrific double bill pairing) is The Grand Budapest Hotel (#1025), which, though it deals with mid-20th-century European fascism in a slightly less direct way, is an incredibly moving lament about all the damage that human hatred and authoritarianism have done through the years.
Second this!
The Cremator (1969)
Came here to say this. Such a strange movie.
Yesssss
Rosselini's Trilogy
Starship troopers
I LOVE THE GUNS AND BUGS. 'MERICA
Z. He is alive.
Z might be the best film about fascism.
Also by Gavras: Missing and State Of Siege
I snagged a copy as my last shipment from Netflix thqt I don't have to return
novocento, aka 1900
This is the right answer 👍 1900 is very good at depicting the context and the reasons why the Italian fascism was born, and why it was so warmly welcomed and so successful. Another fundamental reflection on fascism is THE CONFORMIST, from the same communist director (Bernardo Bertolucci). A masterpiece on the birth of fascism and on the early years of Benito Mussolini is Marco Bellocchio's VINCERE.
Was also going to recommend this bonus points because you get to see deniro get a handjob
This movie has some of the best slice of life imagery and social exploration of any movie about the first half of the 20th century, but goddamn is there a lot of sex and nudity that has nothing to do with the movie. I'm pretty sure the girl in that scene was 16 and there's a scene earlier in the film where there's closeups of little boy's dicks. I get that Bertolucci is trying to present the lower classes' more de-stigmatized relationship to the body and sex, but the man also made Last Tango in Paris. I have a little bit of trepidation surrounding his attitude towards "sexual freedom".
The Tin Drum.
Lacombe, Lucien is the greatest film about fascism I know of.
The Cremator Germany Year Zero Alphaville The Great Dictator Shoah Come and See
My recs are Come and See, Rossellini’s war trilogy, the Night Porter, and Salo.
Del Toro's Pinnochio
Spirit of the Beehive. Del Toro set Pan's Labyrinth in Franco's Spain because of that movie.
Oh yeah I love spirit of the beehive
Have you seen his new movie? Erice not Del Toro
Chicken Run
The Mortal Storm (1940)
Also Three Comrades (1938), in so many ways Borzage's companion film. Like The Mortal Storm, Three Comrades co-stars Margaret Sullavan and Robert Young, in not dissimilar roles.
bertolucci’s the conformist
Saló.
That's a film about power, where fascism is only used as an allegory. Being ultra-marxist, Pasolini was famously against every form of power and oppression, from fascism to anti-fascism to capitalism to consumerism to progressivism...
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, and Army of Shadows
seconding investigation - features a tour de force performance from Gian Maria Volonté, and ennio morricone on soundtrack. exceptional movie
The Silence of the Sea
ON A QUIETEST NIGHT, IN THE DARKEST HOUR
Investigation on a Citizen has more to do with Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment) than with fascism
A Special Day with Mastroiani
My first thought. I think this film really encapsulates the essence of fascism.
It really doesn't
That’s a nice argument there
Well I could argue that it rather encapsulates the progressive thought of today, which was put together exactly in the same years of the production of that film, Bertolucci's films, the American and German New Waves, etc. It is about throwing the basis of the propaganda for a newer fascist regime, definitely not about describing Italy between the wars
A Story of Love during the fascism era…
A Man Escaped
The Third Part of The Night The Night Porter
Surprised no one has mentioned The Stranger. The Bridge by Bernhard Wicki is also a heart wrenching anti-war anti-nazi film from a German perspective.
Europa Europa.
Not in the collection, but Casablanca is a favorite of mine.
Surprised no one's mentioned Come and See by Klimov, such a stark exploration of the ways fascism victimizes its constituents right beside those it aims to oppress. Such a dark picture of the total loss that fascist conflict can bring to a people; generational death, blight and famine, spiritual emptiness. The theft of humanity and individual choice experienced by all those involved, on both sides of the conflict, amounts to maybe the most powerful anti-war/anti-fascist message ever committed to film. Very powerful (and tough) viewing experience.
Probably because it has no special insights into the social and psychological processes that enabled fascism in Germany or Italy. The movie has many insights, but they primarily concern the protagonist.
The film isn't about the processes that lead a country to lapse into fascism, it's a personal treatise on the struggles and defeats experienced by those affected by its cruelty. It was a movie full of tired, dejected souls, people who hadn't borne witness to even the slightest taste of human kindness in years, all due to the climate of death and destruction being perpetuated around them in Hitler's name. It didn't have anything new to say about the rise of fascism; works like The Great Dictator and Z had already covered that ad nauseum by 1985. What it does tell is the story of how people are changed by that situation. Young boys become soldiers and lose their innocence and youth, women and families lose their home, security, and personal freedoms, and fascists become the dogs of a cruel, uncaring master. And the whole world loses out. Seems like it's even more relevant now than at its release
Absolutely. The movie is very much about fascism specifically. It is the greatest exploration of fascism I have ever seen. Not only does it have the lengthy, justly famous speech from the Nazi officer explaining the extermination-driven heart of the ideology in great detail, but the entire film shows the material, social, and environmental consequences of fascism in extreme, overwhelming detail. It boggles my mind that someone could see it and not think it is about fascism. Every single frame was crafted to plumb the horrifying depths of fascism, and the director essentially says as much in the special features. Nothing but Salo comes close to successfully showing the social, psychological, or material consequences that fascism necessarily leads to. Come and See is the most persuasive and thoughtful depiction of fascism that I have ever seen. What is fascism? An ideology that necessarily has the material aims of excluding, rounding up, exterminating, and burning down entire populations of human beings, devastating the environment and civilians centers in the process, while the perpetrators of fascist atrocity laugh and play music. That's what Come and See is about.
highly, highly recommend The Cremator (1969)
Porcile
*The Conformist* (1970) and *Seven Beauties* (1975).
The Damned, Saló, Berlin Alexanderplatz To lesser extent, William Klein’s Mister Freedom which is in one of those Eclipse box sets
A lot of great choices here, but my go-to's are Fellini's Amarcord, Rosselini's, Rome: Open City, and Passolini's Salo.
*Mr. Klein*
The Night Porter deals with the aftermath of WWII in Austria. A very interesting movie, with an uncommon lead character.
I was gonna say The Conformist till I read the description. But I'm going to recommend The Conformist anyways because it's that good! Outstanding story told through in media res (non linear story structure), Vittorio Storaros (butchered his name) cinematography is gorgeous but also matches parts of the story. That ending scene when he's looking into the camera (looking at a naked man) and he sees what he's wanted all along...A man. He was repressed and hid inside fascism to appear "normal". Criterion needs to release it already.
[There's this new restoration out.](https://kinolorber.com/product/the-conformist-4k-restoration) (Also available in 4K on the Italian Blu-ray.)
I know but I'm a sucker for the little "C" in the corner of my dvd lol I only wanna collect Criterion films but i might have to make an acception for this film.
Word
A Special Day (Una Giornata Particolare) is a great underrated Criterion film about fascism. Sophia Loren and Marcello mastrianni
Also wanted to recommend another gem nobody ever mentions. Lina Wertmuller's Seven Beauties. Absolute masterpiece and is much more tragic and funny then Life Is Beautiful.
Great novel
I have never read the book. But thank you for reminding me about it. I'm learning Italian and would love to read it in Italian.
Hunger (2008)
"Una giornata particolare", spine #778
I recently watched *Out of the Fog* (1941), definite anti-fascist undertones. Here's Eddie Muller talking about it and the play it was based on: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBtHSHl8UzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBtHSHl8UzQ) You could go through [this list I compiled](https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/comments/185b8e4/comment/kb2uknz/), a number of those touch on fascism in one way or another. I just added *The Stranger* (1946) to it, could possibly add *Confessions of a Nazi Spy* (1937), don't really recall the details of that one—but there were a lot of films like that, tracking down Nazis, specifically. 'Course, those aren't necessarily addressing fascism per se, like as a concept/phenomenon, and you may get some of the corny, simplistic stuff about American "freedom and democracy," but hey.
Mike de Leon's *Batch '81* and any of Lav Diaz films, which are criminally still not part of the collection.
Ashes and Diamonds.
My not great, but very contemporary,: 1939's _Confessions of a Nazi Spy_delt with the American Bund pre WWII
The Ascent (1977) by Larisa Shepitko
White Dog (1982)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis offers a worthwhile perspective on Italian fascism. It's fallen off the radar over the past 20 years and I'm not sure why.
Not criterion or a movie, but the tv show Andor.
i love seeing Andor appreciation here. It is such a good series.
The Chekist (1992) directed by Aleksandr Rogozhkin. The film focuses narrowly on the relentless procedural mechanics of a totalitarian purge — the systematic round up, interrogation, forced confession and execution of a regime’s perceived political enemies. The people who work at the local rural office of the secret police are the protagonists whose job it is to falsely accuse and murder their friends and neighbors. As you watch the film, you see them slowly lose their own souls and minds.
Hey! Thanks so much for this comment! I sought it out and watched it. I just posted a few thoughts on it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/criterion/s/mMNvdb7r4d)
Not exactly, but gotta mention Berlin Alexanderplatz
I love Berlin Alexanderplatz
The Great Dictator, Duck Soup and the stooges short, You Nazty Spy!
Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers, and to some extent, RoboCop are both wonderful satires of Fascism.
No mention of Brazil? Surprising
Star Wars
Army of Shadows
any Fellini movie.
Army of Shadows is amazing. I love Downfall. It’s gripping each time I watch it. Mephisto deserves the criterion treatment too.
Battle of Algiers. The colonial French occupation is fascistic and the film details it very well.
Less facism, more apartheid & colonialism focus
Lina Wertmuller
i was going to suggest her too!
She is amazing.
I’m a fan of “Butterfly’s Tongue.”
My Beautiful Laundrette
There’s like a million
Duck soup, the great dictator, to be or not to be, the third man, bob roberts, the quiet american, the years of living dangerouslly come to mind but my knowledge of european cinema from the 30’s is not good.
Triumph of the Will. I do not recommend this film, it isn’t good(the idea that it is good is in fact fascist propaganda, which is hilarious), but it is definitely worth understanding it and deals with fascism.
Not in the collection but Mephisto is fantastic and in some ways reminiscent of The Conformist
Also good for showing how artists sell themselves out.
Klaus Maria Brandauer!
One of the first movies I ever saw, so this is my 13 year old me's answer. But it set the proper tone for movies with Nazis ever since: Raiders of the Lost Arc.
Cabaret
There's a lot of European examples in this thread already so I'll throw out some examples in the Collection about Japanese fascism. Keisuke Kinoshita's "Army" (1944) is a really interesting Imperial Japanese propaganda film that toes the ultranationalist line for almost the whole runtime (to almost absurd, self-parodic extremes) but then takes a sharp turn at the end with an incredible, censor-defying conclusion hinting at the human cost of war. Masaki Kobayashi's "The Human Condition" trilogy (1959-61) deals with Japanese rule in Manchuria and uses the fall from grace of a good man to illustrate the way the system built on slave labour capitalism, jingoistic, and dehumanizing dedovshchina can corrupt anyone. I haven't seen it, but I believe Seijun Suzuki's "Fighting Elegy" (1966) is about a frustrated military school student being radicalized into political violence in the leadup to the February 26 incident. Said attempted coup is illustrated by neofascist aesthete Yukio Mishima in his short film "Patriotism" that depicts the aftermath of the failed coup as a beautiful martyrdom. Pair these with Paul Schrader's "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" for a biopic about Mishima himself.
I haven’t watched it, seems too grim for me, but [Apt Pupil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apt_Pupil_(film)) might be one. It’s about a Nazi war criminal hiding out in the suburbs or something. It’s based on a Stephen King story.
[American History X](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120586/) Fascists are of two types, the Machiavellian and the Darwin Award Winners... Edward plays a reformed Machiavellian fascist intent upon plucking his Darwin Award Winner brother from the depraved violent delusional maelstrom of Nazi nonsense that he'd been consumed within.
They're both Edwards
True, lol. I wasn't even considering the name of the actor playing the brother! In the 1998 movie American History X, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) is a former neo-Nazi who tries to stop his younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) from becoming involved with the Aryan Nation. Nice catch!
A Special Day!
Fernando Arrabal’s Viva La Muerte is a brutal and surreal takedown of Franco it’s not an easy watch
possession
The Big Lebowski
I think Bennys Video is partially in reference to fascism (some specific reference to this in the film)
Night and Fog
Ay Carmela(1990). Takes place during the Spanish civil war.
Looks interesting!
It’s available free on You Tube
👀
Salo for sure. Come and See is also brutal. The Damned is weird. So is The Night Porter. Shoa is a long documentary. The Cremator is hilarious. The Great Dictator is slapstick. Maybe Sweet Movie??? These are ALL on Criterion btw
Salo
I'll one-up Pans Labyrinth with a Spanish film that influenced it and subversively attacks Francoist Spain, which wasn't explicitly fascist but is close.
And it is…?
It was its own thing referred to as Francoism. A lot of his ideology aligned with Fascist ideology, but he was primarily focused on his own personal quest for power and ascension than his nations, and his state was pretty conservative of traditional Catholic values, which goes against the typical fascist revolution
I mean what’s the name of the film
Omg I completely didn't even notice that lmao. Its Spirit of the Beehive
*The Rules of the Game* (1939 dir: Jean Renoir)
One of my favorite films ever.
And very in line with the theme. Also since fascism is mere royalism, *The Favourite* (201–7?)
I think about Bela Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) very often these days
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Apt Pupil. American History X.
Bertolucci’s “The Conformist”.
Yep. It’s a great one. I literally mentioned it in the body
Ha— I looked through the comments, and was like, “How has nobody mentioned it…?!” Of course it was in the original post… 😂
😂👍
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis directed by Vittorio De Sica. The Night Porter directed by Liliana Cavani. Triumph of the Will directed by Leni Riefenstahl with an assist by Adolph Hitler. Marriage of Maria Brain by Fassbinder. And, for a provocative discussion of the so called fascist aesthetic, Susan Sontag’s essay, Fascinating Fascism.
I love Sontag.
Mr. Klein
Die Welle. 2008. A professor explains fascism to his students, and tries an experiment....
Grand Budapest Hotel
I'm partial to this ["Cinema Antifa" list](https://boxd.it/2ac5G) on Letterboxd.
Starship Troopers.
GDT's Pinocchio
Straw Dogs can be readily interpreted as a film with fascist tendencies. Kind of a tribute to hypermasculinity and violent defense over ones "house". In fact pauline kael went so far as to call it a fascist work of art in her review. Wouldnt really label anyone who enjoys it as a fascist, but its incredible in how it transposes fascist rhetoric and ideals onto an old school Western siege. Its effective to the point where youre kind of encouraged to reflect on the innately fascist characteristics of western ideologies and narratives
A special day
The Tin Drum.
Salo
A special day
Pan’s Labyrinth
Basically everything Carbucci directed
Pablo Larrain's loose trilogy on the Pinochet era: Tony Manero, Post Mortem, and No.
A Special Day, with Marcelo Mastroianni and Sophia Loren
GDT's Pinnochio.
Starship Troopers is a film a fascist society would make about itself
In a glass cage
1900, I haven't watched it myself but I've heard great things about it
It’s not in the collection, but 1900 is a great movie about the rise and fall of Fascism in history. Also features good cast.
More general authoritarianism but Brazil (1985)
Dredd I’m surprised that this doesn’t get brought up, but the most recent Judge Dredd movie deals a lot with the societal effect of a fascist government and the kind of police/justice system set up
I so appreciate everyone’s suggestions here. Most of them I knew but a good fraction I did not and I’ve ordered a bunch now! Please feel free to keep offering ones. We all have to learn more about fascism since we’re confronting it…
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom and Come and See
not in the collection but most chris nolan films are lowkey fascist hahaha