This spring, The Ultimate Picture Palace presents ‘Antifa On Screen: Anti-Fascist Cinema Classics’, a new film season running throughout May and early June. In a time of renewed global tensions and rising authoritarianism, we’re revisiting a selection of six radical, era-defining films that tackle the fascist impulse from radically different angles and in radically different styles.
“It would have been inconceivable a decade ago, or even five years back, but in the era of Trump, Farage and Alternative für Deutschland, we all now have to live with the very real prospect of a fully-fledged revival of political fascism hovering balefully in the background. While it’s possibly a little soon for cinema to get to grips with the current situation, there’s any number of warnings from history about the way things played out in the past, and may play out in the future. Hence this season of films: each has something to say about the disruption and disaster fascism brings in its wake. We may (I am assuming) be preaching to the choir on this – the UPP’s audience will be all too aware of the dangers that surround us, and are drawing ever closer – so showing these films is not an attempt to wake people up; instead, it’s a way of showing there is hope and there is some light ahead. The world has been here before, and though the cost is likely to be heavy once again, fascism can be beaten.” – Andrew Pulver, Season Co-Curator
Kicking off with Charlie Chaplin’s daring satire The Great Dictator (1940), the season charts a course through nightmare visions and subversions. From the haunting surrealism of The Cremator (1969), a Czech New Wave masterpiece, to the biting irony of Starship Troopers (1997), Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi Trojan horse, these films don’t merely warn against fascism, they dissect its psychology and spectacle.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) explores postwar complicity and personal ambition in a devastated Germany, while Elem Klimov’s Come And See (1985) delivers a harrowing, unforgettable experience of war and genocide through the eyes of a young Belarusian boy. Finally, we close the season with The Conformist (1970), Bernardo Bertolucci’s hypnotic, visually lush exploration of political cowardice and the allure of authoritarian aesthetics.
Though made across different decades and national contexts, each film speaks urgently to the present. These films show that fascism doesn’t always arrive in jackboots, it sometimes comes in the form of bureaucracy and conformity. We hope that these titles challenge audiences not just to remember history, but to recognise its echoes today.
Full listings
THE GREAT DICTATOR
(PG)
Charlie Chaplin’s fearless satire sees a humble barber mistaken for a ruthless dictator. A hilarious and scathing critique of fascism, culminating in one of cinema’s most powerful pleas for peace, freedom, and humanity.
Sunday 4th May 5.15pm
Monday 5th May 2.45pm
Thursday 8th May 3.30pm (+ introduction by critic and film historian Pamela Hutchinson)
Book tickets
THE CREMATOR
(15)
A Prague crematorium manager’s obsession with death leads him down a path of fascist horror. Juraj Herz’s surrealist nightmare blends political allegory and psychological terror in one of the most chilling films of the Czechoslovak New Wave.
Sunday 11th May 2.30pm
Monday 12th May 6pm
Book tickets
STARSHIP TROOPERS
(15)
Humanity fights for survival against alien bugs in this explosive sci-fi thriller. Paul Verhoeven’s action-packed spectacle doubles as razor-sharp satire, exposing the horrors of imperialism beneath its dazzling FX and relentless combat sequences.
Friday 16th May 8.30pm
Saturday 17th May 5.45pm
Book tickets
THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN
(15)
A young bride loses her soldier husband to war but rises through postwar Germany’s ranks with fierce ambition. Fassbinder’s masterpiece is a gripping portrait of survival, power, and a nation eager to rewrite its dark past.
Tuesday 27th May 8.30pm
Thursday 29th May 6pm
Book tickets
COME AND SEE
(15)
A young boy joins the Soviet fight against the Nazis, witnessing war’s unspeakable horrors. Elem Klimov’s harrowing masterpiece is an unflinching, nightmarish vision of World War II and one of cinema’s most devastating antiwar films.
Sunday 1st June 5pm
(+ introduction by film critic Anton Bitel)
Wednesday 4th June 8.30pm (+ introduction by film critic Anton Bitel)
Book tickets
THE CONFORMIST
(15)
In 1930s Italy, a repressed man joins the fascist party and is ordered to kill his former professor. Bertolucci’s stylish psychological thriller explores conformity and power, influencing greats like Scorsese, Coppola, and Mann.
Sunday 8th June 3pm
Monday 9th June 6pm
Book tickets
This season has been programmed in collaboration between The Ultimate Picture Palace and The Guardian’s Andrew Pulver.
