Highest-Rated Movies about 'Dictatorship'

Z (1969), V for Vendetta (2005), The Conformist (1970), Brazil (1985), State of Siege (1972), Machuca (2004), The Last King of Scotland (2006), The Official Story (1985) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Dictatorship movies.

#16. Viva Zapata! (1952)

Storyline: In 1909, Emiliano Zapata, a well-born but penniless Mexican Mestizo from the southern state of Morelos, comes to Mexico City to complain that their arable land has been enclosed, leaving them only in the barren hills. His expressed dissatisfaction with the response of the President Diaz puts him in danger, and when he rashly rescues a prisoner from the local militia he becomes an outlaw. Urged on by a strolling intellectual, Fernando, he supports the exiled Don Francisco Madero against Diaz, and becomes the leader of his forces in the South as Francisco 'Pancho' Villa is in the North. Diaz flees, and Madero takes his place; but he is a puppet president, in the hands of the leader of the army, Huerta, who has him assassinated when he tries to express solidarity for the men who fought for him. Zapata and Villa return to arms, and, successful in victory, seek to find a leader for the country. Unwillingly, Zapata takes the job, but, a while later, he responds to some petitioners from his own village with no more reassurance than had Diaz years before. Realizing that with power his idealism has gone, he returns with them to Morelos - specifically to investigate their complaints against his brother Eufemio. New leaders take his place, and, egged on by the always surviving Fernando, they decide that Zapata is a threat to their regime.—alfiehitchie

Plot Keywords: mexican revolution, based on true story, warrior, revolt, machine gun, bolt action rifle, winchester rifle ...

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#17. Death and the Maiden (1994)

Storyline: Paulina Escobar is a political activist whose husband is a prominent lawyer in an unnamed South American country just out of a dictatorship. One day a storm forces her husband to ride home with a neighbor. That chance encounter brings up demons from her past, as she is convinced that the neighbor (Dr. Miranda) was part of the old fascist regime that tortured and raped her, while blindfolded. Paulina takes him captive to determine the truth. Paulina is torn between her psychological repressions and somber memory, Gerardo is torn between his wife and the law, and Dr. Miranda is forced to endure captivity while husband and wife seek out the uncertain truth about the clouded past.

Plot Keywords: suspense, minimal cast, single set production, torture, knife, panic, delusion ...

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#18. Che: Part One (2008)

Storyline: The Argentine, begins as Che and a band of Cuban exiles (led by Fidel Castro) reach the Cuban shore from Mexico in 1956. Within two years, they mobilized popular support and an army and toppled the U.S.-friendly regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Plot Keywords: translator, dead animal, 1960s, united nations, train derailment, surrender, shot in the head ...

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#19. Half Moon (2006)

Storyline: Mamo, an old and legendary Kurdish musician living in Iran, plans to give one final concert in Iraqi Kurdistan. After seven months of trying to get a permit and rounding up his ten sons, he sets out for the long and troublesome journey in a derelict bus, denying a recurring vision of his own death at half moon. Halfway the party halts at a small village to pick up female singer Hesho, which will only add to the difficulty of the undertaking, as it is forbidden for Iranian women to sing in public, let alone in the company of men. But Mamo is determined to carry through, if not for the gullible antics of the bus driver.—Swie Tio <sweet_t_prod@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: musician, taboo, muslim, human rights, homage, composer, women's rights ...

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#20. 1984 (1984)

Storyline: In the year 1984, rocket bombs and rats prey on the inhabitants of the crumbling metropolis of London. Far away on the Malabar Front, a seemingly interminable war rages against Eastasia. The Ministry of Truth broadcasts ceaselessly to the population via its inescapable network of telescreens. These devices, which pervade all aspects of peoples' lives, are also capable of monitoring their every word and action. They form part of an elaborate surveillance system used by the Ministry of Love, and its dreaded Agents, the "Thought Police", to serve their singular goal: the elimination of "thoughtcrime". Winston Smith is a Party worker, part of the vast social caste known as the "Outer Party", the rank and file of the sprawling apparatus of government. Winston works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth, the section charged with modifying historical news archives for consistency. When by chance, Winston uncovers incontrovertible proof that the Party is lying, he embarks on a ...

Plot Keywords: dystopia, helicopter, nudity, female nudity, bare breasts, totalitarianism, invented language ...

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#21. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1969)

Storyline: Forbin is the designer of an incredibly sophisticated computer that will run all of America's nuclear defenses. Shortly after being turned on, it detects the existence of Guardian, the Soviet counterpart, previously unknown to US Planners. Both computers insist that they be linked, and after taking safeguards to preserve confidential material, each side agrees to allow it. As soon as the link is established the two become a new Super computer and threaten the world with the immediate launch of nuclear weapons if they are detached. Colossus begins to give its plans for the management of the world under its guidance. Forbin and the other scientists form a technological resistance to Colossus which must operate underground.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

Plot Keywords: super computer, science runs amok, talking computer, cult film, scientist, computer, nuclear threat ...

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#22. Kamchatka (2002)

Storyline: The film is seen through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy, Harry (Matías del Pozo), who does not know that Argentina's 1976 coup d'état is impacting his life. After witnessing the "disappearance" of dissident friends, a human rights lawyer (Ricardo Darín) and his research scientist wife (Cecilia Roth) flee the city and hide from the military police in a vacant summer house. With them are their two kids: Harry, who is fascinated with the escape artistry of Harry Houdini, and El Enano, his little brother. (Translated as "Little Guy" in the English subtitles, played by Milton de la Canal. The actual translation is "dwarf".) The family adopts new identities and attempts to lead a normal life. Later, they are joined by a student who is using the alias Lucas (Tomás Fonzi). Their new life is difficult, but a visit with their estranged grandparents (Fernanda Mistral and Héctor Alterio) reveals that they are still a close-knit family. Subtly hinted, however, and used as a metaphor, is the mother's constant smoking and El Enano's renewed bed-wetting. Both serve to show how stressful and precarious their situation is.—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamchatka_(film)

Plot Keywords: elementary school, safe house, parent child relationship, family relationships, buenos aires argentina, 1970s, friendship ...

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#23. Che: Part Two (2008)

Storyline: In 1965, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara resigns from his Cuban government posts to secretly make his latest attempt to spread the revolution in Bolivia. After arriving in La Paz, Bolivia late in 1966, by 1967, Che with several Cuban volunteers, have raised a small guerrilla army to take on the militarist Bolivian movement. However, Che must face grim realities about his few troops and supplies, his failing health, and a local population who largely does not share the idealistic aspirations of a foreign troublemaker. As the US supported Bolivian army prepares to defeat him, Che and his beleaguered force struggle against the increasingly hopeless odds.

Plot Keywords: based on true story, gun, hideout, human rights, hunger, jungle warfare, medicine ...

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#24. The House of the Spirits (1993)

Storyline: Chile, second half of the 20th century. The poor Esteban marries Clara and they get a daughter, Blanca. Esteban works hard and eventually gets money to buy a hacienda, eventually to become a local patriarch. He becomes very conservative and is feared by his workers. When Blanca grows up, she falls in love with a young revolutionary, Pedro, who urges the workers to fight for socialism. It is unavoidable that Pedro and Esteban are pitted against each other. Esteban tries to stop the love affair between Pedro and his daughter by all means possible but soon Blanca becomes pregnant and has a daughter. The void between father and daughter seems unbridgeable when Blanca moves in with Pedro.

Plot Keywords: patriarch, oppression, class conflict, catholic church, catholic, cemetery, childbirth ...

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#25. Cromwell (1970)

Storyline: Disgusted with the policies of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell plans to take his family to the New World. But on the eve of their departure, Cromwell is drawn into the tangled web of religion and politics that will result in the English Civil War.—Marg Baskin <marg@asd.raytheon.ca>

Plot Keywords: protestant, british history, reformation, treason, king, tyranny, religion ...

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#26. Vincere (2009)

Storyline: The story of Ida Dalser, who fell in love with the future Italian Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, supported him while he was unemployed in the early 1910s, and married him, presumably around 1914. She bore Mussolini a son, Benito Albino, before the outbreak of World War I. The two lost touch during the war years and, upon discovering him again in a hospital during the war, she also discovered Rachele Guidi, who had married Mussolini in 1915, and a daughter born in 1910 when Guidi and Mussolini were living together. Historically, following his political ascendancy, Mussolini suppressed the information about his first marriage and he (through the Fascist party) persecuted both his first wife and oldest son and committed them forcibly to asylums.

Plot Keywords: 1910s, based on true story, fascism, italy, 1920s, female full frontal nudity, cinema ...

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#27. The Wild Geese (1978)

Storyline: A British multinational seeks to overthrow a vicious dictator in central Africa. It hires a band of (largely aged) mercenaries in London and sends them in to save the virtuous but imprisoned opposition leader.

Plot Keywords: gore, rescue mission, radio, jungle warfare, semiautomatic pistol, friendly fire, father son relationship ...

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#28. Night Train to Lisbon (2013)

Storyline: This movie is about aging Swiss Professor Raimund Gregorius (Jeremy Irons) of classical languages who, after a chance encounter with a Portuguese woman, quits his job and travels to Lisbon in the hope of discovering the fate of a certain author, a doctor and poet who fought against Portuguese Dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.

Plot Keywords: book, resistance, suicide attempt, portugal, torture, chess, friendship ...

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#29. Rosewater (2014)

Storyline: Based of a true story about a journalist who gets detained and brutally interrogated in prison for 118 days. The journalist Maziar Bahari was blindfolded and interrogated for 4 months in Evin prison in Iran, while the only distinguishable feature about his captor is the distinct smell of rosewater. An interview and sketch that Maziar did with a journalist on The Daily Show (1996) was used as evidence that Maziar was a spy and in communication with the American government and the CIA.—abivians

Plot Keywords: prison, journalism, hijab, based on true story, torture, political prisoner, anguish ...

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#30. Beyond Rangoon (1995)

Storyline: Laura is trying to pick up the pieces of her life after the murder of her husband and son, and goes on vacation with her sister to Burma. After losing her passport at a political rally, she is left on her own for a few days, during which time she falls in with students fighting for democracy. She and their leader, U Aung Ko, travel through Burma, whilst witnessing many bloody acts of repression by the dictatorship, in an attempt to escape to Thailand. Based on a true story.—James Hastie <jdh1000@cus.cam.ac.uk>

Plot Keywords: death of child, historical event, traumatic experience, nonlinear timeline, checkpoint, buddhist monk, buddhist ...

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