Modern Times

Modern Times follows Charlie Chaplin's Tramp, here a factory worker on an assembly line, who is pushed to breaking point by the pace and machinery of industrial work. After a spell in hospital he is arrested, seemingly by accident, during a labour demonstration, and later wins his release by unintentionally helping to stop a prison riot. Back outside, he joins forces with a young orphaned woman he meets on the streets, and the two try to scrape together a living. Chaplin wrote, produced and directed the film, and also composed its music. Paulette Goddard plays the girl, with Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford, Chester Conklin and Hank Mann among a credited cast of 43. It runs 87 minutes and was released in February 1936 by United Artists.

The film was Chaplin's seventeenth as director in chronological order, coming between City Lights and The Great Dictator, and it was made for about 2 million dollars. Its reputation rests on lasting approval rather than novelty: on IMDb it holds 8.5/10 from roughly 284,000 votes, on TMDB 8.3/10 from about 4,200 votes, while a critics' rating stands at 9.5/10 across 113 reviews. The audience scores point to a widely liked film, and the critics' figure places it higher still.

Though it arrived well into the sound era, the film keeps the methods of silent comedy, with dialogue conveyed mainly through gesture and intertitles, and the Tramp's voice is heard only in a song near the end.