The best films about totalitarian regimes

A 10-year-old boy goes through variety of silly situations and confusions during the peak of Marshal Tito's cult of personality in 1950's Yugoslavia.

Set in the late 1940s, the film concerns the treatment of suspect "bourgeois elements", a professor, a saxophonist, and a milkman, who are put to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation.

A small group of bourgeois guests head for a birthday party of a prominent figure. As they go through the woods and have a picnic, they are suddenly surrounded by a bunch of suspicious strangers.

After coming home from a Party gathering one night, a Czech official becomes convinced that he is about to be the subject of a political purge and tries to do damage control, while also dealing with his turbulent marriage.

In the 1950's, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers.

Two families, Sebkovi and Krausovi, are celebrating Christmas, but not everyone is in a good mood. Teenage kids think their fathers are totally stupid; fathers are sure their children are nothing more than rebels, hating anything they say.

The wife of the recently deceased lawyer tries to cope with grief after his loss and to keep his last case going in court.

Tonia goes out drinking. She wakes up in prison, not having a clue why she's there. She is tortured to encourage her to confess to a crime she is not aware of.

A government agent enlists his girlfriend to spy on a professor.

In the 1950s, a music director falls in love with a singer and tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.

A young Polish filmmaker sets out to find out what happened to Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer who became a propaganda hero in the 1950s but later fell out of favor and disappeared.

Having lost her parents to Stalin's purges, a girl returns from Soviet Union to her native Hungary to live with her Stalinist aunt.

Banned for over a decade for its outspoken criticism of the post-WWII communist regime in Hungary, Péter Bacsó's 'The Witness' has since then achieved unparalleled cult status in its native land. Known as the best satire about communism, 'The Witness' has become a cult classic, which was also well received by critics and general audiences alike when it was finally released outside of Hungary. Its candid and realistic portrayal of the incompetent communist regime has earned great acclaim for both the director and the film itself when it was shown at Cannes Film Festival in 1981. 'The Witness' takes place during the height of the Rákosi Era, which was closely modeled after the ruthless and brutal Stalin regime. The film follows the life of an ordinary dike keeper, József Pelikán, who has been caught for illegally slaughtering his pig, Dezsõ. Instead of doing hard time for his "heinous" crime, Pelikán is elevated into an important position, generally reserved for the communist elite. Of course, Pelikán is utterly clueless about his newfound luck, not to mention his new job. Even his new benefactor, the mysterious Comrade Virág, is reluctant to reveal the real reason behind Pelikán's preferential treatment. Thus, begins Pelikán's hilarious adventure deep within the "sophisticated" communist society. One failure after another the incompetent Pelikán is elevated higher and higher on the communist echelon, all the while remaining completely clueless about his promotions. Until one day, when he gets called for to return the "favour" by falsely testifying against his long-time friend in a mock-up show trial.

A local talk show host organizes an alcoholic professor and a pensioner known for playing Santa Claus to decide whether there was ever a revolution in their town Vaslui.

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

Several urban legends of Communist Romania are dramatized.

Tomislav is a former Partizan who continues his struggle after the war as a dedicated member of Tito's secret police. He meets and falls in love with a ballet dancer from a bourgeois family. His love affair with the class enemy and his slow adaptation to the post-war realities could seal his doom.

The staff of elementary school prepare the retirement party for their cleaning woman. The complicated relations within the school will emerge to the surface on the same night.

After the collapse of the Yugoslavian government, a former secret agent, now a taxi driver, enters the office of a former university professor, now a firm director.

A doctor working in 1980s East Germany finds herself banished to a small country hospital.

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.

During the Cold War, an American lawyer is recruited to defend an arrested Soviet spy in court, and then help the CIA facilitate an exchange of the spy for the Soviet captured American U2 spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers.

In 1990, to protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma, a young man must keep her from learning that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared.

In 1957, a French student Pierre Duran arrives in Moscow for an internship at Moscow State University.

Set in 1930s Moscow. About an aristocratic woman married to a member of Josef Stalin's secret police who embarks on an affair with a baggage handler.