In Space Everyone Knows You’re a Fascist: ‘Starship Troopers’
In the season one finale of Fascism on Film, we turn our attention to Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997), a film that functions both as a raucous sci-fi action movie and a biting satire of fascist ideology. Initially dismissed by critics as a celebration of militarism—“a thoroughly Nazi movie,” in the words of one reviewer—Starship […]
The Question of Fascism: ‘To Be or Not to Be’
Fascism on Film takes a sharp, funny, and surprisingly emotional look at Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 wartime satire To Be or Not to Be—a screwball comedy about a Polish theater troupe who find themselves impersonating Nazis, outwitting Gestapo agents, and flying to safety in Hitler’s own airplane. What starts as a lighthearted romp through mistaken identities […]
Remembering Fascism: ‘Amarcord’
In this episode, we return to Italy through memory, ritual, and the absurd pageantry of daily life. Federico Fellini’s Amarcord (which means “I remember” in Romagnol dialect) recreates a year in the life of a small provincial town under Mussolini’s fascism. The result is both whimsical and damning. At first glance, Amarcord looks like a […]
Hiding from Fascism: ‘The Garden of the Finzi-Continis’
In this episode, we turn to Vittorio De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, an Oscar-winning adaptation of Giorgio Bassani’s semi-autobiographical novel. Set in Ferrara during the late 1930s, the film follows an aristocratic Jewish family who retreat behind the walls of their estate as Mussolini’s racial laws begin to strip away Jewish rights. Their […]
The Italian In Crowd: ‘The Conformist’
In this episode of the Fascism on Film Podcast, we look at Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), a story about Marcello Clerici, a man in Mussolini’s Italy sent to Paris to spy on—and kill—his former professor, a socialist in exile. It’s also a study of how personal weakness and the desire to “fit in” can […]
America Anti-fascism: ‘Black Legion’ and ‘Confessions of a Nazi Spy’
In this episode of Fascism on Film, we turn to late-1930s America, an anxious nation watching as authoritarian movements surged abroad and felt their reverberations at home. Long before the United States entered World War II, Hollywood began shaping stories that confronted this threat directly, laying the groundwork for an early tradition of anti‑fascist cinema […]
Proto-fascism: The Birth of a Nation
On this week’s episode, the Fascism on Film Podcast tears into one of the most repugnant films of all time: “The Birth of a Nation.”
The Ecstasy of Leni Riefenstahl: Triumph of the Will
In this episode of the Fascism on Film Podcast, we tackle Triumph of the Will (1935), the most iconic and disturbing Nazi propaganda film ever made. Directed by Leni Riefenstahl and commissioned by Adolf Hitler himself, this record of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally remains one of the most controversial works in cinema history.
The Show Must Go On: ‘Mephisto’
In Mephisto, Klaus Maria Brandauer plays Hendrik Höfgen, an ambitious actor who becomes one of the most famous performers in Nazi theater and cinema. Based on a true story, the film charts the actor’s evolution in conscience and helps us define fascism. He doesn’t start as a fascist. He starts as a striver, hungry for […]
A Storm Approaches: ‘The Mortal Storm’
In this episode, we talk about The Mortal Storm (1940), Frank Borzage’s quietly devastating portrait of a German family caught in the first months of Nazi rule. …