Modern Times
AFI #78·BFI #81·National Film Registry
A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time...
What critics thought
Nearly universally regarded as one of Chaplin's masterworks, Modern Times draws near-total critical agreement on its comic brilliance and its enduring political resonance — the rare film that sharpens with time rather than dating. The only real dissent at its 1936 release concerned its choice to remain mostly silent in the sound era, and a handful of contemporary reviewers found its structure loose and episodic rather than a tightly unified whole.
“the same old Charlie, the lovable little fellow whose hands and feet and prankish eyebrows can beat an irresistible tattoo upon an audience's funnybone or hold it still, taut beneath the spell of human tragedy ... Time has not changed his genius.”
Frank Nugent·The New York Times
“manufactures some superb laughs ... In all, it's a rambling sketch, a little at loose ends at times, sometimes rather slight in effect, and now and then secure in its rich, old-fashioned funniness.”
John Mosher·The New Yorker
“[Chaplin] presents, he doesn't offer political solutions.”
The Spectator
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorCharlie Chaplin
StarringCharlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford, Chester Conklin
ComposerCharlie Chaplin
Modern Times
AFI #78·BFI #81·National Film Registry
A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time...
What critics thought
Nearly universally regarded as one of Chaplin's masterworks, Modern Times draws near-total critical agreement on its comic brilliance and its enduring political resonance — the rare film that sharpens with time rather than dating. The only real dissent at its 1936 release concerned its choice to remain mostly silent in the sound era, and a handful of contemporary reviewers found its structure loose and episodic rather than a tightly unified whole.
“the same old Charlie, the lovable little fellow whose hands and feet and prankish eyebrows can beat an irresistible tattoo upon an audience's funnybone or hold it still, taut beneath the spell of human tragedy ... Time has not changed his genius.”
Frank Nugent·The New York Times
“manufactures some superb laughs ... In all, it's a rambling sketch, a little at loose ends at times, sometimes rather slight in effect, and now and then secure in its rich, old-fashioned funniness.”
John Mosher·The New Yorker
“[Chaplin] presents, he doesn't offer political solutions.”
The Spectator
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorCharlie Chaplin
StarringCharlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford, Chester Conklin
ComposerCharlie Chaplin