The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

90. 1936 - Modern Times

Modern Times Charlie Chaplin
United Artists

Honourable Mentions: Dodsworth, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Rembrandt

No list of the greatest movies ever made would be complete without an appearance from arguably the greatest silent film star ever, Charlie Chaplin, albeit in the form of a film that was also part-talkie.

Modern Times proved to be the last time Chaplin reprised his iconic role as The Tramp, but he may have saved his best rendition for last. While The Kid and City Lights are equally marvellous, Chaplin yielded an entertaining but equally affecting feature with Modern Times, showcasing the toil of the industrial economy and the relentless pace of existence as the United States slowly galvanised from the Great Depression.

 
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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.