Line #7 YMMV/TheGreatDictator


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2	* {{Anvilicious}}: The film concludes with a 3 and a half minute speech delivered directly to the camera. While Chaplin's political views were complicated, a clear takeaway is "Down with Hitler." The anti-Nazi message isn't exactly subtle but this was the US of 1940 and a large minority in the US had some sympathy for or were impressed by the Nazi regime.
3	* AwardSnub: It received five UsefulNotes/AcademyAward nominations and won none. Creator/CharlieChaplin was nominated for Best Actor and Screenplay, but not Best Director.
4	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: After the Barber and Hannah escape to the roof while running away from the soldiers, there is a short scene of Hynkel playing the piano, after which it goes back to the Barber and Hannah on the roof. The piano shot serves no purpose (except maybe for Charlie to show off) and is just kind of there. However, it's possibly there to juxtapose the Barber's misery with Hynkel's trouble-free circumstances.
5	* DeathOfTheAuthor: WordOfGod is firm on the jewish barber not being The Tramp that Creator/CharlieChaplin was known for playing, that doesn't stop a lot of viewers and fans to ignore it and consider this the GrandFinale of the character, especially for those who love the irony of one of the most iconic characters of the silent cinema's farewell being through an epic RousingSpeech. Notably, the ''Film/{{Chaplin}}'' biopic goes for this take.
6	* FairForItsDay: It's (through no fault of its own) inaccurate about how evil the Nazis were, but is harsh on hatred and racism, which makes it very relevant for today. And that speech is still inspirational.
7	* FridgeBrilliance: A possibly unintentional instance, but it definitely makes sense in hindsight. "Tomainia" is named after "ptomaine poisoning", an antiquated term for food poisoning, now known to be caused by bacteria. Similarly, fascist political theory originated in Italy and then spread to Germany. Now, what was this movie's version of Italy called again?
8	* GeniusBonus: The signs in the Jewish Quarter are written in UsefulNotes/EsperantoTheUniversalLanguage. In ''Literature/MeinKampf'', Hitler wrote that he thought it was created as a tool to unify the Jewish diaspora.
9	* HarsherInHindsight: Chaplin only had a faint picture of the atrocities occurring in Nazi Germany when the film was being produced, based on what refugees from Europe had told him. (Back in 1940, the worst things had not started yet anyway.) He would later state that had he known the full extent of the Nazis' crimes, he would never have made the film.
10	** [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything "We've just discovered the most wonderful, the most marvellous poison gas. It will kill everybody!"]]
11	** The concentration camp scenes in particular make for quite awkward viewing. Perhaps the most In Your Face example of this trope is when the Jewish Barber first arrives at the camp. Whereas all the prisoners walk in one direction, he walks toward another. When one of the guards asks him where he's going, he cheerfully answers: "The Smoking Room," before being pushed the other way. In Auschwitz, prisoners were pointed to walk in one direction or another, and people waved in the wrong direction got sent to gas chambers.
12	** Hynkel makes a stirring speech about Tomania's expansion, including France, Finland and Russia. France had already been invaded by Nazi Germany, Russia would be in the next year, and Finland would remain Germany's co-belligerent during the latter.
13	* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Anybody who thought that Chaplin was only capable of sight gags and slapstick corrected themselves after watching this movie. Then again, it wasn't acting so much as [[AuthorTract Charles Chaplin speaking his mind]].
14	* HeartwarmingInHindsight: With the allegations of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany's influence on Hollywood during its [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood golden age]] coming to light, Chaplin's determination to produce an anti-Nazi satire feature film in defiance of it comes off as downright heroic.
15	* MemeticMutation: For some reason the RousingSpeech has been seeing some spread, in the form of clips like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7HtO57f1Es this one.]] Such clips are rather frequently posted under the title "The Greatest Speech Ever Made", or some variant of it. May be a case of ValuesResonance, particularly in TheNewTens.
16	* MisaimedFandom: UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler watched the film at least twice. The general belief is that he enjoyed it, but Chaplin once said he would've given anything to really know what Hitler thought.
17	* NightmareFuel: While Hynkel himself is funny, the laws that he passes to persecute the Jewish people are not. No matter how ridiculous Hynkel is; the fact that he can have his soldiers harass and assault any Jew without reproach is legitimately chilling.
18	* SignatureScene:
19	** Hynkel dancing with the globe balloon. It was even in [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/The_Great_Dictator_%281940%29_poster.jpg/1200px-The_Great_Dictator_%281940%29_poster.jpg the first poster]], and Hynkel about to remove the globe remains one of the film's most representative shots.
20	** The barber's RousingSpeech at the end of the film, which as mentioned above is often labeled as one of the greatest speeches ever.
21	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: In some ways, the film is actually quite ahead of its time in its satirical depiction of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, since it openly mocked the Nazis when the United States was still neutral. In other ways, though, it's clearly an early-1940's film, and its depiction of Nazi Germany can seem rather jarring to modern audiences. For one thing, Creator/CharlieChaplin hadn't known the full scale of the Nazis' racial persecutions at the time the film was made (years later, he said if he had known, he wouldn't have made the movie at all), so he portrays the Nazis' domestic policies as much more mild than they really were, i.e. the Nazi stand-ins are shown bullying and harassing the Jews, but nothing much worse than that. For another thing, he focuses much of the plot on the rivalry between Hitler and Mussolini (er..."Hynkel" and "Benzino") over the occupation of Austria, and portrays Mussolini as a seriously intimidating rival to Hitler; the dispute over the annexation of Austria was big news in 1938, but it's only remembered as a minor historical footnote today, and Fascist Italy is only remembered as an ineffectual ally of Nazi Germany during World War II.

Context YMMV / TheGreatDictator