The 20 best movies and TV shows about dictators

Everyone loves a villain origin story, and in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, viewers finally get to learn about how President Snow became the man that he appears to be in the original films. In this film, young Snow befriends a tribute named Lucy Gray Baird, and their growing bond forces him to make some desperate decisions between what his heart wants and what he is destined to be as one of the shrewdest and most ruthless political minds of his generation. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes provides viewers with a front-row seat to some of the formative years of one of YA fiction’s most notorious dictators. 

The critically acclaimed series Succession focuses on Brian Cox’s Logan Roy, a powerful media mogul who, faced with age and ill health, decides to pass on his power and his empire to one of his three children. The four seasons dwell with remarkable and riveting detail on the various power plays the three legitimate Roy siblings (their illegitimate half-brother is repeatedly sidelined and treated as little more than a joke) engage in, always willing to betray each other if it means they’ll accede to their father’s power. The show’s lodestar is always Logan, however. While he may not rule a country, it’s clear that he rules his business empire with all of the steel-fisted tyranny of a despot, and he’s not afraid to bend the politically powerful to his will. 

Star Wars is quite obviously one of the most successful franchises ever. While it is about many things, it is arguably primarily about the rise of a dictatorship and those determined to destroy it so that freedom and liberty can flourish. Taken as a piece, the various entries in the main saga allow the viewer to see how a dictator like Palpatine rises to power, how he is brought low, and how this fight must be constantly repeated. As the rise of the First Order in the sequel series shows, dictators and their acolytes will always find a way to trouble the world.

Taut and thrilling, V for Vendetta  takes place in a bleak future in which Britain has been taken over by a fascist regime. Natalie Portman delivers a strong performance as Evey Hammond, as does Hugo Weaving as the vigilante and terrorist V. It’s really John Hurt’s Adam Sutler, the dictator, who is the film’s most terrifying and compelling character. The late Hurt was one of those actors who exerted a powerful hold any time he appeared on the screen, and despite his ruthlessness, he is an undeniably skilled politician who knows how the levers of power work and is more than happy to use them to his advantage. 

Based on the beloved novel by C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe  focuses on the four Pevensie children as they find themselves swept into the magical realm of Narnia, which the tyrannical White Witch rules over. Tilda Swinton delivers a truly magnetic and terrifying performance as the sorceress, who has the ability to turn her enemies to stone. She wields power with an iron fist, and there are even times when it seems as if she might outwit the mighty lion Aslan. However, she is like many other dictators; she is brought low by her own hubris, ultimately destroyed by the lion. 

Ian McKellen delivers a chilling performance in Richard III, in which he portrays the title character. The film is a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s classic tale of the usurper Richard III. In McKellen’s hands, he becomes ruthless yet utterly compelling. From the moment he appears on-screen, he is impossible to look away from, and though his rise to dictatorial power is eerily reminiscent of 1930s fascism, McKellen endows his character with enough savage grace to keep him from becoming a caricature. Of course, as in Shakespeare’s play, there is no hope for him in the long run, and he ultimately becomes the victim of his own ambitions. 

Perhaps no dictator is as infamous as Adolf Hitler, who not only forged the horror of the Holocaust but also sought to bring all of Europe under the Nazi boot. His fall from power and eventual suıcide is the subject of the German film Downfall, in which he is portrayed by Bruno Ganz, who is almost uncanny in his ability to inhabit the mind and soul of this monstrous individual. Far from humanizing Hitler, however, the film instead shows him as the egomaniacal tyrant that he was, a man who was led to his own demise by his hubris and lack of self-awareness. 

The Marx Brothers are in fine form in Duck Soup, which has become one of their best films. Groucho is particularly hilarious as Rufus T. Firefly, who becomes the ruler of the nation of Freedonia. Like The Great Dictator, this is political satire at its finest, and it pulls no punches as it ruthlessly satirizes the ineptitude of the powerful. It is particularly scathing in portraying those who try to use power for their own ends. Like the best films of its kind, it gives viewers an opportunity to poke fun at those who typically rule over their lives with impunity. 

The series Tyrant, which aired from 2014 to 2016, focuses on Bassam "Barry" Al-Fayeed, the son of a Middle Eastern dictator who has successfully managed to escape his family and its ugly past. However, by the time the series begins, he is abruptly thrown back into the mix when his father dies, and his brother ascends to the throne. It's a fascinating look at how dictatorships work, with a character like Barry poised to occupy a liminal state, providing the viewer with a remarkably nuanced and thoughtful point of view regarding the inner workings of tyranny.

Set during the reign of Emperor Nero (played with camp panache by Peter Ustinov), Quo Vadis focuses largely on the Roman soldier Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor) as he first falls in love with the Christian maiden Lygia (Deborah Kerr) and then falls afoul of the emperor. It’s a vibrant and powerful film about the nature of faith amid oppression. Moreover, though Nero is undoubtedly a buffoon, he also shows that he is a ruthless despot, someone capable of crushing the Christians when they seem to pose a threat to his power. Like many other dictators, however, he ultimately meets his own fate, and as his power crumbles around him, he takes his own life with the aid of his faithful mistress, Acte. 

Seth Rogen and James Franco star in The Interview, which focuses on a pair of journalists who manage to snare an interview with none other than North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Before long, however, they’re sucked into an ever more fraught situation as they become part of an assassination plot. Though the film is funny enough — though betraying some poor taste in its choice of subject — it is probably better known for being the source of some international trouble, as the film was one of the contributing factors to the Sony hack, which, in its turn, caused quite a few headaches for the studio and its stars.

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has never shied away from movies in bad taste, and The Dictator takes things to an even greater extreme. In this crass spoof, he portrays a number of different characters, including the unsubtly named Admiral General, who is a clear reference to a number of real dictators, including Muammar Gaddafi. Whatever its flirtations with bad taste, the film nevertheless succeeds in pointing out the essential ridiculousness and folly that lurks beneath the surface of even the murderous and most tyrannical of despots. Such figures become figures of fun rather than terror.

As a series, The Hunger Games  might focus primarily on Jennifer Lawrence, but there’s no doubt that Donald Sutherland’s President Coriolanus Snow is also a towering presence. He’s sinister yet charming, has sacrificed a great deal to attain his place at the pinnacle of power, and will do anything to stay there. He proves to be a superb foil for Katniss, and the fact that he is a genuine believer in his own autocratic rule makes him all that much more frightening. Sutherland is also in fine form in his performance, giving viewers a character that is somehow both terrifying and utterly compelling. 

Ridley Scott demonstrated his facility with the epic genre with Gladiator,  which focuses on Russell Crowe’s Maximus, a Roman general who is betrayed, becomes a gladiator, and ultimately defeats and kills the tyrannical Emperor Commodus in the Colosseum. The film is concerned with many things, but it is particularly interested in the nature of monarchical power and how it corrupted the Roman state. Phoenix is delightfully deranged as Commodus, a man who constantly yearns for the approval of others even as this is the one thing he can never really attain. 

Forest Whitaker delivers an astonishing and disturbing performance in The Last King of Scotland,  in which he portrays the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. He paints the ruthless ruler as a man who can be effortlessly charming and charismatic yet utterly ruthless and barbaric in his dealings with those who betray him or try to undermine his power. James McAvoy is likewise riveting as Dr. Nicholas Garrigan, a Scottish doctor who finds himself drawn into the despot’s orbit. The film doesn’t shy away from showing the violence of Amin’s regime, and, as a whole, it is a cautionary tale about the corrupting nature of power on those who wield it.

Napoleon Bonaparte looms large in the history of Europe, and in addition to being a hugely successful general, he became a dictator, essentially a monarch in all but name. Ridley Scott, one of the masters of the epic film form, turns his attention to this legendary figure in the film that bears his name. Joaquin Phoenix delivers a remarkably textured performance as Napoleon, even if the film as a whole reduces him to something of a buffoon so convinced of his own right to glory that he can’t see how small and foolish he really is. Scott manages to cut the powerful down to size, and it’s astonishing how adept he is at doing so.

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy of films is about many things, among which is the threat of despotism to the free peoples of Middle-earth. Both Saruman and Sauron yearn to exert complete control over everyone and everything, so they both yearn to get their hands on the One Ring. However, the film trilogy is a reminder to everyone that there is a great deal of power in even the smallest of people, such as the hobbit Frodo, who gives up everything, including his own future in Middle-earth, in his pursuit of the destruction of the Ring. Despotism in Tolkien’s universe is ultimately defeated by its own hubris and arrogance, which makes both the novel and its adaptation so uplifting. 

Charlie Chaplin is widely and rightly regarded as one of the finest and most talented actors of his generation. In The Great Dictator, in which he directed and starred, he portrays both the hero and the villain, a Jewish barber in the ghetto, and Adenoid Hynkel, the titular great dictator. Hynkel is very obviously a pointed and scathing satire of Adolf Hitler, and therein lies the brilliance of Chaplin’s performance. He manages to puncture the pompous self-regard in which Hitler held himself, peeling away the layers of built-up propaganda to reveal the absurd little man beneath.

As its title implies, The Death of Stalin focuses on the aftermath of the infamous Soviet dictator’s death, when various powerful figures within the Soviet Union vie for control of both the Communist Party and the nation as a whole. Given that it was written and directed by Armando Iannucci — known for his satirical TV series The Thick of It and Veep — it’s no surprise to find this film exhibiting the director’s own potently cynical attitude toward those in power. It’s a film that only continues to grow in relevance with the increasing prominence of egomaniacal strongmen throughout the world, and it demonstrates the extent to which such dictators are often far weaker than they would like others to believe.

In the HBO series The Regime,  Kate Winslet plays Elena Vernham, who rules her country with an iron fist. As the series goes on, however, she finds her rule and her mental state becoming increasingly unstable. Fortunately, she has an unshakeable ally in the figure of Herbert Zubak, who goes from disgraced soldier to dictator’s intimate in a remarkably short period of time. The series is a strange but pleasurable mix of satire and political drama. Winslet gives a remarkably terrifying performance of a woman, both incredibly powerful yet also hamstrung by her neuroses.