The Kid

1921 · Charlie Chaplin

• Guide · Watch with intention…ewn corners give the comedy a grounded, lived-in texture of poverty. How Chaplin builds a gag: a simple routine is set up, then twisted again before the payoff, usually i…
• Guide · Why watch this?…nges, set among cramped alleys and tenements. Chaplin makes poverty funny without making the poor a joke, which makes this an ideal first silent film. Silent cinema's cle…
• Guide · Social context…marriage carried heavy social stigma. The film's themes of poverty, abandonment and social judgment come from this world. Poverty and welfare Chaplin grew up in poverty…
• Guide · readout_before…e marriage carried heavy stigma. Chaplin himself grew up in poverty in Victorian London, spending time in workhouse schools, while his mother suffered long mental illness…

City Lights

1931 · Charlie Chaplin

• Guide · Cinema at the time…film and refuse dialogue. Industry The Depression had made poverty and fragile fortunes everyday subjects. A film about a homeless man and a rich man who treats him acco…
• Guide · Social context…treet crash. The film reached audiences as unemployment and poverty were rising across the United States, giving its tramp hero fresh relevance. Country and moment Breadl…
• Guide · Watch with kids?…motional intensity Beneath the comedy, the story deals with poverty and hardship, and sensitive children may find some moments sad or emotional. Pace It is silent and bla…
• Guide · readout_before…ash of 1929. By the time audiences saw it, unemployment and poverty were rising across the United States. Breadlines and homelessness were everyday sights. A comedy about…

Bicycle Thieves

1948 · Vittorio De Sica

• Guide · Why watch this?…lem of postwar European realism, proving that a story about poverty, shot cheaply on location, could be both art and a worldwide success. Vittorio De Sica and screenwrite…
• Guide · Social context…e Italian politicians criticised films that showed national poverty. Many filmmakers, though, wanted to show ordinary life honestly after years of Fascist-era propaganda.…
• Guide · Watch with kids?…from his father? Bleak tone A sombre, realistic portrait of poverty and hardship, with little light relief. Emotional intensity Sustained anxiety about money and survival…
• Guide · readout_before…m of postwar European realism. It proved that a story about poverty, shot cheaply on location, could be both art and a worldwide success. It is the defining film of Ital…

The Wizard of Oz

1939 · Victor Fleming

• Guide · Social context…wl-era Kansas farm setting. In the 1930s, drought, debt and poverty made farm life precarious. Audiences knew these hardships, and the film's idea of longing for somewher…
• Guide · readout_before…Kansas farm in the dust-bowl years, when drought, debt and poverty made farm life precarious. Audiences knew those hardships, and the idea of longing for somewhere bette…

La Dolce Vita

1960 · Federico Fellini

• Guide · readout_before…teen-fifties and the early sixties, Italy went from postwar poverty to rapid industrial growth. Cars, television and new consumer wealth arrived fast. Rome's Via Veneto b…
• Guide · Social context…ween the mid-1950s and early 1960s Italy moved from postwar poverty to rapid industrial growth, with new consumer wealth, cars and television. The film looks at what this…

M

1931 · Fritz Lang

• Guide · Social context…oment Berlin was a huge, anxious metropolis with widespread poverty and fear of crime. Press coverage of notorious serial killers, such as Peter Kürten in Düsseldorf (arr…

Seven Samurai

1954 · Akira Kurosawa

• Guide · Watch with kids?…d sense of threat building toward the climax. Mature themes Poverty, hunger, class prejudice and mistrust between groups are central, and the story treats them seriously…