framethrowerSign up for free

The Great Dictator (1940)

Directed by Charlie Chaplin · Cinematography by Karl Struss, Roland Totheroh

G125 min65 frames

ComedyWar

Once again - the whole world laughs!

IMDb ↗Watch on Amazon ↗

Stills, screencaps & shots from The Great Dictator

16 of 65 frames — the full set is searchable by lighting, lens, shot size, color and mood with a free account.

The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: fullbody — A rural vineyard landscape with rows of grapevines stretching across the sloped terrain. A woman…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: wide — A line of soldiers in uniform stands across a dusty, open field under daylight. A single commanding…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: wide — An older man sits under a shaded vine trellis at a vineyard with mountains visible. He reads a…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: medium — A woman sits on a wooden bench beneath a large tree on a patio. She reads a letter while holding a…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: medium — A government office with a large wooden card catalog cabinet behind a desk. A man in a military…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: wide — A grand, classical stone government building with a central dome serves as the backdrop. Soldiers in…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: closeup — A field with rows of grapevines stretches toward distant rolling hills in the background. A woman…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: medium — A man stands before a large, prominent globe in a formal indoor setting. He leans forward with wide…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: closeup — A newspaper with a large headline sits behind a glass display pane. The front page of the Tomainia…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: medium — A man in military dress stands positioned behind a large, ornate stone clock face. The clock is set…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: closeup — An upside-down close-up shows a pilot against a featureless gray background. The man wears a…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: fullbody — A rustic, sparsely furnished room features wood-paneled walls and an open doorway. A man and woman…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: fullbody — A vast, barren landscape of dry earth and rolling hills under a bright sun. A man in military…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: medium — A soldier stands amidst a dense cloud of grey smoke on an obscured battlefield. The man holds a…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: medium — A formal drawing room features a polished wooden piano and an ornate wall mirror. A man in a…The Great Dictator (1940) movie still: fullbody — A European-style storefront features painted signs with faux-foreign lettering and the word Jew. A…
The Great Dictator (1940) — © Charles Chaplin Productions

The Great Dictator — official trailer

What is The Great Dictator about?

Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.

The Great Dictator is a 1940 American political satire black comedy film written, directed, produced by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. Having been the only major Hollywood filmmaker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, Chaplin made this his first true sound film.

Second paragraph from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Where can you watch The Great Dictator?

US availability for The Great Dictator (1940). Data by JustWatch, listings on TMDB. Availability changes — check the provider for current listings.

Who stars in The Great Dictator?

Who made The Great Dictator?

What does the cinematography of The Great Dictator look like?

Sampled across 65 frames, the coverage of The Great Dictator leans on medium shots (38% of the sample) and wide compositions (26%). Cinematographer Karl Struss keeps 58% of it in soft, high-key light. This is largely a daylight film — 80% of the frames play in daylight. Vintage glass shapes the frame. Deep focus keeps foreground and background readable at once in 66% of the frames. The production design places the film in the 1940s.

What is the color palette of The Great Dictator?

The dominant colors across the sampled frames of The Great Dictator (1940) are #020202, #fbfbfb, #464545, #868686, #c8c8c8, #aeaead — measured from the per-frame color data FrameThrower extracts for every film.

  • #020202
  • #fbfbfb
  • #464545
  • #868686
  • #c8c8c8
  • #aeaead

See the full The Great Dictator colour palette — every hex with its share, plus warmth, saturation and luminance.

The Great Dictator ranks in

A reference database for filmmakers

FrameThrower is a fully machine-searchable film database and visual reference library — all 65 frames of The Great Dictator (1940), and 5,000+ films besides, indexed frame by frame and readable by AI. Search it in plain language, from a reference image, or by colour; call it from an API, an MCP server or an SDK. It's the reference layer for making the next movie.

Sign up for freeAPI & MCP docs

Techniques in this film

More films by Charlie Chaplin

More Comedy films

Cast, trailer and streaming data from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.