Anti-fascist films that hit just right

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

​​Publisher’s note: This article contains spoilers. 

Perhaps it was Elon Musk’s Hitler salute at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Maybe it’s the endless waves of authoritarian rhetoric coming from the White House these days. Whatever the case, despite fighting a world war against fascism and Nazism, America is wading through a particularly ugly period where extreme åç is creeping into our national identity. Whether it takes hold for good or we send it running as we did 80 years ago, it’s important to understand what fascism actually is and how to resist it.

Hollywood has a long history of resisting fascism through art, with films that continue to shed a harsh — and sometimes humorous — light on the consequences that occur when we allow dictators to gain power. Here are some of the best efforts over the past 100 years of cinema.

Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator. Courtesy photo

The Great Dictator (1940)

Released a year before the U.S. entered World War II, The Great Dictator is a political satire and black comedy that was written, directed by, produced by and starring Charlie Chaplin as his first “talkie” after a career in silent movies. 

The film served as a striking backhand to the German and Italian dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, as well as fascism itself as a political movement. The movie became Chaplin’s most commercially successful film, and has since been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

Chaplin’s career took a hit afterward, however. The FBI compiled a 1,900-page file on him and, when he left the U.S. for a trip to England in 1952, his reentry papers were revoked unless he agreed to an immigration and naturalization inquiry into his moral and political character. Chaplin refused and chose to spend most of the rest of his life living in exile. He only returned to the U.S. in 1972 to collect an honorary Academy Award.

American History X (1998)

One of the most troubling — and prescient — films made over the past 40 years, American History X follows the story of Derek Vinyard, a violent neo-Nazi played by Edward Norton who is convicted of murder after brutally killing a Black man who tries to steal his car. Vinyard experiences a transformation after meeting and becoming friends with a Black inmate, changing his life and attempting to convince his former skinhead friends to see the error of their ways. Though beautifully filmed, the violence in American History X makes it a film you’ll probably only watch once, but it’ll definitely make a lasting impact.

District 9 (2009)

District 9 is an odd film to include in this list, but if the jackboots fit…

Blending sci-fi with mockumentary satire, District 9 showcases a military operation in South Africa to relocate a refugee camp built for aliens who have invaded Earth. The way the humans view the aliens — as loathsome, non-native drains on resources which they refer to as “prawns” because they resemble shrimp — is eerily similar to South Africa’s forcible removal of non-white residents from Capetown’s District Six during the apartheid era, as well as how Trump portrays immigrants in the U.S. 

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

In the first of his films offering unique alternate histories, Quenton Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is a righteous film that takes back the power. Set during World War II and starring an ensemble cast, Tarantino’s film follows a ragtag group of soldiers who are, as Brad Pitt’s character explained, “in the killin’ Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin’.”

If nothing else, it’s a film to watch in celebration of the once agreed-upon notion that Nazis are always the bad guys. I especially enjoyed Tarantino’s crescendo when the entire Nazi leadership burns to death inside a cinema.

Minority Report (2002)

Based on Philip K. Dick’s 1952 novella of the same name, this cyberpunk film explores Dick’s concepts of a technocratic authoritarian government of the future featuring a police state that is said to detect crimes before they happen. With rapid advances in AI continually shoved down our throats, Dick’s novel was well ahead of its time when it was written in the 1950s and the film adaptation matches that energy.

Starship Troopers (1997)

Paul Verhoeven’s film was such an effective satire that many critics misinterpreted the film as a full-throated endorsement of authoritarianism, missing the heavily-laden satire the Dutch director is known for. Everything about the film — including the super dumb, super hot actors; the gleeful displays of orgiastic military violence; the austere costumes; and dialogue that seems lifted directly from Nazi propaganda — oozes with satire that paints a clear picture that authoritarianism isn’t that great. “Would You Like to Know More?”

Porco Rosso (1992)

The only animated film on this list, Porco Rosso was written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Set in 1929, seven years after Mussolini took power, an Italian World War I ex-fighter pilot experiences a curse that causes him to have a pig’s head (“porco rosso” means “red pig” in Italian). While flying to Milan to have his seaplane serviced after defending an ocean liner from airborne pirates, Porco Rosso’s plane is shot down by an American pilot, with whom he later duels in an epic dogfight.

The best line occurs when an Italian officer invites him back into the Italian Air Force with a prominent position. Porco scoffs and replies, “Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather be a pig than a fascist.” Yes.