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Charlie Chaplin

The Gold Rush (1925)
Chaplin's Little Tramp character goes prospecting in the frozen Klondike in this classic silent comedy, which features such unforgettable sequences as the dance of the dinner rolls and the eating of the shoe.

Modern Times (1936)
Nearly a decade after the rest of the movie world had gone talkie, Chaplin was still making silents, spending years crafting this epic satire on the modern industrial age, in which his factory worker literally becomes a cog in the machine, being threaded through the gears like a strip of film. Wife Paulette Goddard co-stars as a waif befriended by the Tramp.

The Great Dictator (1940)
In his first talkie, Chaplin lampoons the tyrant who had stolen his mustache, playing both a Hitler-like dictator and a lookalike Jewish barber. Some thought Chaplin's satire didactic and heavy-handed; but after the U.S. entered World War II, it suddenly looked chillingly prophetic. —Gary Susman

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Image Credit: Everett Collection