Sort by Popularity - Most Popular Movies and TV Shows tagged with keyword "totalitarian-state"

1. The Handmaid's Tale (2017– )

TV-MA | 60 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship.

Stars: Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd, O-T Fagbenle

Votes: 258,042

2. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)

PG-13 | 157 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

Coriolanus Snow mentors and develops feelings for the female District 12 tribute during the 10th Hunger Games.

Director: Francis Lawrence | Stars: Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Viola Davis, Dexter Sol Ansell

Votes: 117,100

3. The Lives of Others (2006)

R | 137 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Stars: Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur

Votes: 410,551 | Gross: $11.29M

4. 1984 (1984)

R | 113 min | Drama, Sci-Fi

In a totalitarian future society, a man, whose daily work is re-writing history, tries to rebel by falling in love.

Director: Michael Radford | Stars: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack

Votes: 79,037 | Gross: $8.40M

5. The Interview (II) (2014)

R | 112 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

Dave Skylark and his producer Aaron Rapaport run the celebrity tabloid show "Skylark Tonight". When they land an interview with a surprise fan, North Korean dictator Jong-Un Kim, they are recruited by the CIA to assassinate him.

Directors: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen | Stars: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Randall Park, Lizzy Caplan

Votes: 354,743 | Gross: $6.11M

6. The Handmaid's Tale (1990)

R | 108 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

Under a dystopian religious tyranny, most women cannot conceive children. Those young women who can live in a form of sexual slavery to provide children for influential families.

Director: Volker Schlöndorff | Stars: Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth McGovern

Votes: 10,747 | Gross: $4.96M

7. The Great Dictator (1940)

G | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, War

Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.

Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner

Votes: 237,381 | Gross: $0.29M

8. Child 44 (2015)

R | 137 min | Crime, Drama, History

A disgraced member of the Russian military police investigates a series of child murders during the Stalin-era Soviet Union.

Director: Daniel Espinosa | Stars: Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman

Votes: 75,803 | Gross: $1.21M

9. Tin Man (2007)

TV-PG | 90 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

A re-imagining of L. Frank Baum's classic "The Wizard of Oz."

Stars: Zooey Deschanel, Alan Cumming, Neal McDonough, Kathleen Robertson

Votes: 14,538

10. Balloon (2018)

PG-13 | 125 min | Drama, History, Thriller

East Germany, 1979. After initially failing to flee from the East to the West in a self-built hot-air balloon, two families struggle to make a second attempt, while the East German State Police are chasing them.

Director: Michael Herbig | Stars: Friedrich Mücke, Karoline Schuch, David Kross, Alicia von Rittberg

Votes: 13,329 | Gross: $0.01M

11. Alice (2009)

Not Rated | 92 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy

Everything you know about Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is about to be turned upside down in this modern-day mini-series. The cast includes Kathy Bates, Caterina Scorsone, Matt Frewer, Harry Dean Stanton, and Tim Curry.

Stars: Caterina Scorsone, Andrew Lee Potts, Matt Frewer, Kathy Bates

Votes: 9,821

12. Mephisto (1981)

Unrated | 146 min | Drama

In early-1930s Germany, a passionate stage actor faces a dilemma: renounce his apolitical stance and comply with the Reich's doctrine, or face oblivion. But, Faustian bargains never end well. What is the price of success?

Director: István Szabó | Stars: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Ildikó Bánsági, Krystyna Janda, Rolf Hoppe

Votes: 11,596

13. Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 (1994 Video)

R | 74 min | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi

In the future, corporations have taken over the world and banned sex. A group of rebellious high school students devise a way to go back in time and change history to prevent that from ... See full summary »

Director: David DeCoteau | Stars: Morgan Fairchild, Ian Abercrombie, Brian Bremer, Christopher Wolf

Votes: 633

14. Animal Farm (2025)

Animation, Comedy, Drama | Announced

Feature film based on the novel by George Orwell.

Director: Andy Serkis | Star: Andy Serkis

15. Rise of the Nazis (2019–2023)

60 min | Documentary, History

Powerful and resonant series that looks at how Hitler and the Nazis seized power in Germany and ushered in the death of democracy.

Stars: Richard John Evans, Kate Fleetwood, Heike B. Görtemaker, Richard Overy

Votes: 1,171

16. Burnt by the Sun (1994)

R | 135 min | Drama, War

In the USSR in 1936, shadows of Stalin's repressions fall on a famous, revolutionary hero. The accusations of him being a foreign spy are nonsense, and everyone knows that. However, a slow process of his downfall has already started.

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov | Stars: Nikita Mikhalkov, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Oleg Menshikov, Nadezhda Mikhalkova

Votes: 16,348 | Gross: $2.62M

17. Genesis II (1973 TV Movie)

Not Rated | 74 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

A scientist who has been preserved in suspended animation wakes up to find himself in a primitive society in the future.

Director: John Llewellyn Moxey | Stars: Alex Cord, Mariette Hartley, Ted Cassidy, Percy Rodrigues

Votes: 1,119

18. The Adventurers (1970)

R | 171 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

The wealthy playboy son of an assassinated South American diplomat discovers that his father was really murdered on orders of the corrupt president of the country--a man who was his ... See full summary »

Director: Lewis Gilbert | Stars: Charles Aznavour, Alan Badel, Candice Bergen, Thommy Berggren

Votes: 902 | Gross: $2.84M

19. Curfew (2019)

TV-MA | 60 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A group of amateur drivers from all over the world compete in an illegal night-time street race.

Stars: Phoebe Fox, Andi Osho, Billy Zane, Aimee-Ffion Edwards

Votes: 1,926

20. Katyn (2007)

Not Rated | 121 min | Drama, History, War

An examination of the Soviet slaughter of thousands of Polish officers and citizens in the Katyn forest in 1940.

Director: Andrzej Wajda | Stars: Andrzej Chyra, Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Zmijewski, Danuta Stenka

Votes: 17,414 | Gross: $0.12M

21. The Perfect Weapon (2016)

Not Rated | 88 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

In the not so distant future, society is controlled by the powerful State and a dictator known as the Director. Condor works as a hitman for the State, but a reunion with someone he thought... See full summary »

Director: Titus Paar | Stars: Steven Seagal, Richard Tyson, Johnny Messner, Vernon Wells

Votes: 2,322

22. Hitler: A Career (1977)

Not Rated | 150 min | Documentary, History

This meticulously assembled film dissects the Third Reich with an analytical blade, charting Hitler's improbable rise, his mastery of crowd psychology and his consummate skill in exploiting others' weaknesses.

Directors: Joachim Fest, Christian Herrendoerfer | Stars: Gert Westphal, Stephen Murray, Artur Axmann, General Bergeret

Votes: 3,035

23. Centrespread (1981)

Not Rated | 82 min | Drama, Sci-Fi

The Story of a photographer's struggle in the glamorous world of nude modeling.

Director: Tony Paterson | Stars: Kylie Foster, Paul Trahair, Mark Watson, Ivor Louis

Votes: 229

24. Nazi Concentration Camps (1945)

Not Rated | 59 min | Documentary, History

Produced and presented as evidence at the Nuremberg war crimes trial of Hermann Göring and twenty other Nazi leaders.

Director: George Stevens | Stars: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, George S. Patton, Hayden Sears

Votes: 1,646

25. Chuck Norris vs. Communism (2015)

Not Rated | 78 min | Documentary, Comedy, History

In the oppressive 1980s communist Romania, the smuggled VHS tapes of banned Hollywood films become an inspirational ray of hope. A hybrid feature about the magic of film and the power it has to change lives.

Director: Ilinca Calugareanu | Stars: Irina Margareta Nistor, Teodor Zamfir, Mircea Cojocaru, Vlad Craioveanu

Votes: 2,458

26. Moy drug Ivan Lapshin (1985)

100 min | Drama

Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin's Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to do. And he does it well.

Director: Aleksey German | Stars: Andrei Boltnev, Nina Ruslanova, Andrey Mironov, Aleksey Zharkov

Votes: 2,649

27. North Korea: Michael Palin's Journey (2018– )

45 min | Documentary

As diplomatic relations between DPRK and South Korea begin to slightly thaw after decades of hostility, comedian and world traveler Michael Palin is allowed to visit North Korea for two weeks and, to a limited extent, explore the country.

Star: Michael Palin

Votes: 963

28. The Guide (2014)

122 min | Drama, History

American boy Peter and blind minstrel Ivan are thrown together by fate amidst the turbulent mid-1930s Soviet Ukraine.

Director: Oles Sanin | Stars: Stanislav Boklan, Jeff Burrell, Boris Georgievskiy, Anton Sviatoslav Greene

Votes: 3,477

29. The Nazis: A Warning from History (1997)

292 min | Documentary, History, War

An examination of how a cultured people could have allowed Adolf Hitler's rise to power.

Stars: Samuel West, Adolf Buchner, Jutta Rüdiger, Günther Ruschin

Votes: 1,722

30. Kamikaze 89 (1982)

Not Rated | 106 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller

In a totalitarian society of the future, in which the government controls all facets of the press, a homicide detective investigates a string of bombings, and finds out more than he bargained for.

Director: Wolf Gremm | Stars: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Günther Kaufmann, Boy Gobert, Arnold Marquis

Votes: 828 | Gross: $0.02M

31. Apocalypse: Stalin (2015)

157 min | Documentary, History, War

The rise of Stalin, from his early beginning as a bankrobber to the cold-blooded leader of the Soviet Union.

Stars: Mathieu Kassovitz, Doug Rand

Votes: 1,119

32. Papers, Please (2013 Video Game)

M | Drama, Thriller

In the fictional socialist state of Arstotzka in 1982, a border checkpoint inspector must cope with complex entry regulations, superiors' corruption, terrorists, a mysterious group and the personal drama of the applicants for entry.

Director: Lucas Pope | Star: Ilya Shubochkin

Votes: 1,670

33. How I Celebrated the End of the World (2006)

Not Rated | 106 min | Drama

In Communist-era Romania, people live with hope for a new life of freedom.

Director: Cãtãlin Mitulescu | Stars: Dorotheea Petre, Timotei Duma, Ioan Albu, Sergiu Anghel

Votes: 3,231

34. Vasiliy Stalin (2013)

53 min | Biography, Drama, History

This is the story about the son of one of the greatest tyrants of the Twentieth Century- Joseph Stalin's flesh and blood, Vasily.

Stars: Gela Meskhi, Vasiliy Prokopev, Anatoliy Dzivaev, Sergey Gazarov

Votes: 136

35. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (2010)

Not Rated | 180 min | Documentary, Biography, History

The film explores the image of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu using unknown official footage from the Romanian National Television and National Film Archives.

Director: Andrei Ujica | Stars: Nicolae Ceausescu, Elena Ceausescu, Stefan Andrei, Gheorghe Apostol

Votes: 1,639 | Gross: $0.03M

36. Zavtra byla voyna (1987)

89 min | Drama, War

This movie is based on a novel by Boris Vasiliev and describes life in a small Russian provincial town in 1940 - one year before Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Director: Yuriy Kara | Stars: Sergey Nikonenko, Nina Ruslanova, Vera Alentova, Irina Cherichenko

Votes: 970

37. Herec (2020– )

TV-MA | 78 min | Drama, Thriller

During the Communist regime, a struggling actor joins the KGB as an informant to manage to make a living. He soon finds himself caught up in a dangerous web of deception and betrayal.

Stars: Jan Cina, Jenovéfa Boková, Martin Finger, Jan Nedbal

Votes: 226

38. Auch Ninotschka zieht ihr Höschen aus (1973)

R | 78 min | Comedy

A Russian official and his three female coworkers are mistaken for a pimp and his three prostitutes.

Director: Claus Tinney | Stars: Rinaldo Talamonti, Elma Karlowa, Franz Muxeneder, Jürgen Feindt

Votes: 59

39. The Spy (2012)

108 min | Action, Drama, Thriller

In the spring of 1941 German agent Wasser of the Abwehr holds an NKVD commissar hostage. Two soldiers, a boxer and a spy are the NKVD's only hope to rescue him.

Director: Aleksey Andrianov | Stars: Danila Kozlovskiy, Fedor Bondarchuk, Anya Chipovskaya, Sergey Gazarov

Votes: 1,318

40. Nazis: The Occult Conspiracy (2005)

104 min | Documentary

How Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime made use of ancient mysticism and occultism to win the war. The Nazi's also used occult mind control techniques to brainwash Germans to perceive themselves as the master-race.

Directors: Tracy Atkinson, Joan Baran | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Michael Kater, Peter Padfield, J.H. Brennan

Votes: 271

41. Kimjongilia (2009)

Not Rated | 75 min | Documentary, Drama

North Korean defectors tell their stories of repression, escape and hope.

Director: N.C. Heikin | Stars: Young Hun Choi, Chol-Hwan Kang, Lee Shin

Votes: 931 | Gross: $0.00M

42. Videograms of a Revolution (1992)

106 min | Documentary, History, War

This documentary uses news footage and amateur video to paint a vivid picture of Romania's 1989 revolution and the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Directors: Harun Farocki, Andrei Ujica | Stars: Ion Caramitru, Elena Ceausescu, Nicolae Ceausescu, Mircea Dinescu

Votes: 655

43. Shores of Hope (2012)

116 min | Drama

The dream of two young men to become sailors collides with the harsh realities of life in East Germany.

Director: Toke Constantin Hebbeln | Stars: Alexander Fehling, August Diehl, Ronald Zehrfeld, Thao Vu

Votes: 563

44. Ein Tag - Bericht aus einem deutschen Konzentrationslager 1939 (1965 TV Movie)

110 min | Drama

Germany, January 1939: a day in a concentration camp. Subjected to harsh military discipline the hungry prisoners are digging a huge hole and filling it up again. Several are tortured, die of exhaustion, in the electric fence, or are shot.

Director: Egon Monk | Stars: Harald Eggers, Eberhard Fechner, Willem Fricke, Norbert Friese

Votes: 66

45. Slovo House (2017)

81 min | Documentary, Drama, History

The extraordinary story of Ukraine's "Slovo House".

Director: Taras Tomenko | Stars: Boris Georgievskiy, Anna Levchenko, Mykhaylo Voznyuk, Olga Radchuk

Votes: 99

46. Laboratory Greece (2019)

165 min | Documentary

A journey through Greece and Europe's past and recent history: from the Second World War to the current crisis. It is a historical documentary, a look into many stories.

Director: Jacopo Brogi | Stars: Filippo Abbate, Konrad Adenauer, Salvador Allende, Rania Antonopoulos

Votes: 32

47. Augusto Pinochet: The Coup, the Torture & the West (2023 TV Special)

45 min | Documentary, History

September 11th, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the military coup that brought General Pinochet to power in Chile. With the support of world democracies, including the US and UK, the dictator ruled through terror and torture.

Director: Lyndy Saville | Stars: Cal Seville, Roberto Navarrete, Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, Grace Livingston

Votes: 13

48. Vulpe - vânator (1993)

102 min | Drama, History

Inspired by the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime in Romania, this novelistic feature examines the questions of a society after a revolution has happened, such as guilt and atonement and ... See full summary »

Director: Stere Gulea | Stars: Oana Pellea, Dan Condurache, Mara Grigore, Claudiu Istodor

Votes: 186

49. Requiem for Dominic (1990)

R | 85 min | Drama

A drama between revolution and order, captured partly on film, partly on video adding to the gritty reality of the time, place and events as they unfolds in Eastern Europe as the "Iron Curtain" collapsed.

Director: Robert Dornhelm | Stars: Felix Mitterer, Viktoria Schubert, August Schmölzer, Angelica Schütz

Votes: 94

50. Trading Germans (2014)

90 min | Documentary

A first hand account of one of the biggest cases of human trafficking during the Cold War. A story of greed, courage, hope and remorse.

Director: Razvan Georgescu | Stars: Heinz-Günther Hüsch, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Klaus Kinkel, Horst Teltschik

Votes: 115