Claim: Charlie Chaplin starred in a film.

Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin in which his iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern , industrialized world . The film is a comment on the desperate employment and financial conditions many people faced during the Great Depression , conditions created , in Chaplin 's view , by the efficiencies of modern industrialization . The movie stars Chaplin , Paulette Goddard , Henry Bergman , Tiny Sandford and Chester Conklin .   Modern Times was deemed `` culturally significant '' by the Library of Congress in 1989 , and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry . Fourteen years later , it was screened `` out of competition '' at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival .