It’s been a bleak couple of months for anyone with a conscience. With a resurgence of fascism in Germany and Nazi salutes behind the presidential seal at a United States inauguration I think it’s best we focus on things that are starkly against that kind of evil. With rhetoric othering people and asking citizens to embrace a open, aggressive cruelty, I can think of no better way to spark a fire inside you than to gobble up any anti-fascist media you can. There’s plenty of print and audio for it (read Art Spiegelman’s Maus before they try to ban it at the federal level), but I love film the most. There’s a ton of it out there that’s either highlighting the evils of ignorance and excuses, mocking people that are hateful and cruel like the pathetic stains they are, and even serving to confound viewers that aren’t in on the visual language presented to them.
In no particular order, here are ten of my favorites and where to stream them.
The Zone of Interest (2023)
Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’ book could seem quite boring to some. It would, in fact, seem like everyday life to those that want certain current groups of people rounded up into camps. Rudolf Hoss serves as an excellent antagonist, leading the film by portraying how boring this filthy work can be. He’s the commandant of Auschwitz, infamous for being one of the worst of the Third Reich’s death camps. You never see the Jews. You can hear their cries of pain and fear quietly in the background and the chimney’s constantly puff out smoke as Hoss brags about helping design a more efficient gas chamber, but the film focuses on his family. They seem like a loving family, normal and happy in all aspects. And yet there’s something under the surface. Whether telling one of their Jewish house slaves that if they displease Frau Hoss that her husband will scatter her ashes across the fields or the dehumanizing language they use to talk about their victims, the film focuses on just how little evil people care about the horrors they enact on others. It’s poignant right now, as legal US citizens face deportation due to the Republican desire to revoke birthright citizenship and erasing queer people. The Zone of Interest serves as a reminder that the people praising fascists are fully capable of ignoring the violence and hatred innate to their point of view.
The film can be watched on Max.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
There’s really nothing quite like watching Harrison Ford punch Nazis, is there? The dashing hero stars in one of the best action movies ever made, all centered around painting fascists as incompetent boobs that can’t understand or discover for themselves and have to steal and face consequences instead. Whether it’s watching them melt or get shredded by an airplane propeller, it’s just a blast to watch horrendously evil people get their comeuppance. This is another film where we never see the Jews, but we don’t need to. That massive Swastika, the salutes, it’s all enough to show us the type of monsters our hero is up against. It also happens to be one of, if not THE most entertaining film every made. It should be, as Spielberg and Lucas created it with the concept “what if every scene that would be the best in another movie is in this one?” Wonderous that they couple that with punching and humiliating Nazis, something we should all keep our minds on these days.
The film can be watched on Disney+.
The Great Dictator (1940)
One of the best tools against a fascist is humiliation. They don’t like acknowledging that their stance is built on greed, hatred, and willful ignorance (all while trying to hide it behind religion). Simply put, The Great Dictator is a delightful way to poke fun at the Nazis. It’s a shame we don’t have the comedic talent of Charlie Chaplin these days because I suspect we’d get a similar send-up of Donald Trump. Hitler is portrayed as a flamboyant dumbass, while a character similar to Chaplin’s Tramp is mistaken for the dictator because they have the same mustache. That alone speaks to the idiocy of fascists, whose best defense is ignoring reality, but when he’s propped up as the dictator goes missing he’s given a moment to give an impassioned plea. He begs for understanding, kindness, compassion, and acceptance. His plea was actually one made directly to Hitler, a known cinephile that was sent and shown a print of the film. Chaplin was obviously ignored, which speaks to our current situation quite profoundly as people are beginning to cut off relationships following years of pleading for kindness from fascists.
The film can be watched on Max.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
My favorite Tarantino film, Inglourious Basterds, places a light humor and humanity into its Nazi subjects so that their cruelty can be only more terrifying. An alternate version of events, it envisions a timeline where a group of Jewish American troops are dropped into Germany with the sole purpose of killing any and all Nazis they can. They humiliate them, terrorize them, and beat one to death with a baseball bat. During each interaction they let one Nazi go, but there’s a catch. The frightened fascists openly state that they’re going to hide their uniforms, their connection to the Nazis, and never let who they are out again. The Jewish unit doesn’t like that, so Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) carves a Swastika into their foreheads with a knife. It’s a hilarious reminder that no matter where you go and how much you try to hide it in public, you’re still a Nazi and we all know. Other wildly hilarious things happen to Nazis in the film but this is my favorite. Hatred can’t be hidden anymore, mostly due to people feeling emboldened by social media as they build echo chambers where they feel safe and forget that others can see them. I laughed my ass off then, and I laugh my ass off now. Why? Because fascists are stupid monsters.
The film can be rented or purchased digitally in all the usual places. Arrow Video also has a badass 4K release of the film.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
Yeah, there’s no one that’s specifically a Nazi in these films. What’s wild is that Nazis and fascists can exist without a Swastika armband. J.R.R. Tolkien’s book trilogy depicts a band of diverse people standing against a monstrous figure that leads a band of hateful creatures, twisted from Elves into Orcs that exist only to destroy. It’s a fitting metaphor for our current day, where ordinary citizens have been twisted into hateful creatures that gleefully clap while an Apartheid baby throws up the sieg heil for the world to see. But Tolkien (and by extension Jackson’s trilogy) suggests that even the smallest of people can make the biggest difference with their actions. It also suggests that fascist regimes are so fragile that it only takes brave citizenry exploiting their weaknesses to bring the whole house of cards crashing down. Watching an Elf, a Dwarf, four Hobbits, two Men, and a Wizard journey through numerous pitfalls, fears, and ultimately come out on top is inspiring. Even Boromir, who falls prey to the One Ring’s influence, is representative of people that think fascism can defeat fascism. What really defeats it is one person, no matter how small, persevering in the face of destruction.
The trilogy can be watched on Max. But for real, just buy the special editions on blu-ray.
The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1999-2005)
Sure, on the surface it may not seem like it’s anti-fascist and more about the fall of everything to a fascist regime, but it’s important despite its numerous flaws. I came to The Phantom Menace as a kid and it was an important part of how I view the world. Watching a bunch of would-be do-gooders talk about monsters in their history, all while ignoring the evil rising in front of them, has only become more and more relevant as I grew and changed. By the time we get to, “So this is how liberty dies; with thunderous applause,” I’m panicking. We watched this happen just less than a week ago, and it was to open joy from its crowd. Whether they’d been hoodwinked, as the Republic Senate had, or were finally feeling free to not have to hide their evil anymore is up to you to decide. I think it’s a mixture. I find Palpatine a rather intelligent version of your usual fascist dictator, using cleverness instead of preying on xenophobia and hatred as so many others have. In light of the recent bill to allow Trump a third term (and a fourth, and a fifth, etc), the fact that Palpatine is allowed to stay in office long beyond his term’s expiration date is chilling. This isn’t just an anti-fascist set of films, it’s one that’s screaming at its audience to pay attention and it failed.
The films can be watched on Disney+.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Assimilation into the hive mind is terrifying, isn’t it? When the hive mind dictates that everyone should be exactly the same, no diversity or culture or art or even true emotion, it becomes exponentially so. Philip Kaufman’s film is a nightmare trapped in a film that proudly presents itself as a B-movie with something on its mind. It’s far more than that, but messages are often a Trojan Horse. It starts with your friends, neighbors, even spouses or partners. But then it balloons to them going to meetings or listening to recordings. Elizabeth’s (Brooke Adams) feat that her husband is up to something sinister isn’t too far off from worrying that your partner is listening to Andrew Tate. A few years ago it would have been Rush Limbaugh, who would gleefully read off the names of queer people that had recently died while he played triumphant choir bells and was actively against consent during intercourse. Consent definitely plays a role here, as the replacement people constantly try to convince their new victims that they want this despite their constant protestations. You want to avoid the hive mind? Avoid fascism. Avoid MAGA.
The film can be watched on AMC+ and rented/purchased in all the usual places. The Shout Factory blu-ray is also well worth the buy.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
The way I describe this to people is, “It’s a movie about how even evil fascists need good middle-management or they won’t survive.” It’s important to anyone that’s ever relied on government or health care for anything, knowing full well that those entities are more interested in exploiting you than helping you. It’s a tough pill to swallow, especially as Trump just rolled back Biden’s executive order to lower the price of prescription drugs. Why did he do this? Why did he screw over not just people that oppose him, but those that voted for him as well? Simple – he doesn’t care about you, he just wants your vote. Dementus and Immortan Joe are the same way, eating up everything around them as they rise above the starving, the dying, the poor. They’ve privatized all resources and enslaved hundreds in order to preserve their empire, all while hiding in locked-up fortresses above their subservient. They take a myriad of wives, which they call “breeders,” and utilize them to assert their masculine virility as they strive for the perfect heir. It’s a fitting parody of our current world, one that shows a woman learning to live within and then overcoming a world bent on hating her for no reason besides her genitals.
The film can be watched on Max.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
You want to talk about another time (other than now) that the bad guys won? Let’s head to Spain and Pan’s Labyrinth, a film that places a little girl into the home of a fascist, obsessed with breeding a male heir. She finds a world of fantasy, whether real or make-believe, and tries to navigate her awful surroundings and fantastical obligations as rebels close in on a fascist monster. It’s a heart-breaking and lovely tale, one that is open to interpretation when it comes to whether or not something supernatural is happening. What’s real is her evil stepfather, a high-ranking officer in the regime that won the Spanish Civil War. This is a thing Guillermo del Toro often reflects upon. We all should, given that evil won this time as well. There’s a desperation, almost a plea in his storytelling and it permeates his entire career: don’t let the monsters win. No beast or creature created for his films measures up to the monsters we can be to each other, never more apparent than when the evil stepfather bashes a starving peasant’s head in with a glass bottle with nary an expression except for that of disgust with those he considers beneath him. It’s a thing more should think on, and it’s a beautiful film to boot.
The film can be rented/purchased in all the usual places. The Criterion edition is worth your time.
Children of Men (2007)
What would you do if you knew the human race was just going extinct? It’s not due to climate change, which many are now realizing is real despite 50 years of evidence that major companies and Reagan helped to suppress. It’s not due to the libs taking over, which your Facebook relatives have been saying for years. It’s because for some reason people stopped being able to have children. Humanity isn’t going out with a bang. It’s not going to make any impact. Your big truck that made you feel less inadequate, your huge house that held rooms your forgot existed, your bank account full of more money than you could ever want while you complained about the homeless person that made you feel scared while you went shopping, it all meant nothing because we’re going to wither away. No one matters, nothing ever did. But what if, and go with me here, the fate of the world revolved around a immigrant single mother? When those with a breeding kink, the trad wives and the alpha males, suddenly rely on the thing they hate most…what then? Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men asks these very questions, but it also asks whether or not you’ll step up with nothing left to care about and no one you agree with to preserve the lives of your fellow humans. We’ve recently seen that so many wouldn’t, instead actively supporting genocidal nightmares, but the loud outrage revolving around these instances gives me hope. Children of Men is about hope, no matter the circumstances. And remember, “Sid’s a fascist pig.”
The film can be watched in any of the usual purchase/rental places.
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