#61. The Circus (1928)

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– Director: Charles Chaplin

– Metascore: 90

– Runtime: 72 minutes

Charlie Chaplin as the Little Tramp is hired as a clown by a traveling circus. The silent movie’s famous scene is Chaplin, with his fine-tuned comic timing, as he walks a tightrope and is attacked by escaped monkeys. Chaplin won his first Academy Award for “versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing.” But it was made as Chaplin was going through an acrimonious divorce, and production halted for eight months while lawyers tried to seize the studio’s assets.

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