Modern Times

The final screen appearance of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp character is also one of his most iconic — and most hilarious. Instead of blithely ignoring the era in which it was made, Modern Times tackles the Great Depression head on, opening with the Little Tramp as a factory worker at a bizarre, dehumanizing corporation, where one classic sequence finds him unable to keep up with an ever-more-rapidly churning assembly line. Also indicative of the times: though still a "silent" picture, Chaplin incorporates sound effects — evidence of that merciless machinery — and song, giving the Little Tramp voice for the first time.