9 Movies That Were Responses To Other Films

7. Modern Times Called Out The Jazz Singer & The Sound Era

Charlie Chaplin's indelible 1936 classic Modern Times was the filmmaker's final silent film, and a not-so-subtle protest about the end of the silent era, with Chaplin anxious that the advent of "talkies" would cause much of his comic style to become lost.

The movie's early scenes depicting the over-the-top nature of the factory where the Tramp (Chaplin) works feel like a pointed thumb of the nose at major technological progress, which in filmic terms occurred almost a decade earlier with the release of the first sound movie, 1927's musical The Jazz Singer.

Modern Times is clearly a case of Chaplin throwing the gauntlet down to Al Jolson and everyone who followed, even though the death of the silent movie was all but inevitable. To his credit, Chaplin transitioned into sound movies slickly enough, with 1940's The Great Dictator enduring as one of the star's very best films.