Joker: Every Easter Egg & Reference We Spotted

13. Modern Times

One of the strongest sequences in the movie occurs during the aforementioned gala screening of Charlie Chaplin's classic 1936 comedy Modern Times, which Thomas Wayne attends and Arthur sneaks into in order to speak to Wayne.

In a fantastic beat, Arthur observes Wayne watching the movie and laughing hysterically at the slapstick, along with his fellow well-off brethren, all of them seemingly ignoring the film's rich social commentary and subtext.

Because of course, Modern Times is a devastating satire of the post-Depression era, where the average working stiff faced unemployment or, at best, being another disposable cog in an increasingly industrialised machine.

Similarly is Arthur viewed as a castaway, and to take it further, his rail-thin appearance and peculiar physical ticks aren't a million miles away from Chaplin's own Tramp.