California National Guard members protect the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building downtown Thursday. Photo: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A federal judge has ruled that President Trump’s call-up of the California National Guard was illegal, prompting an immediate appeal from the Trump administration. The troops will remain in place for at least a few days after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted an administrative stay of the judges ruling. Earlier Thursday, federal agents tackled and briefly detained California senator Alex Padilla during a press conference by DHS secretary Kristi Noem. Both developments follow days of unrest Los Angeles sparked by ongoing ICE raids in the city and across southern California, as well as President Trump’s extraordinary attempted takeover of the state’s National Guard. Mass protests are expected across the country on Saturday. Here’s the latest.

U.S. Senator Alex Padilla is pushed out of the room as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem holds a news conference regarding the recent protests in Los Angeles on Thursday. Photo: Etienne Laurent/AP Photos

This post has been updated.

In the wake of Elon Musk’s Hitler-like salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration — a gesture that sparked outrage and reinvigorated the cultural conversation about fascism’s alarming reemergence — there’s no better moment to revisit cinema’s most compelling examinations of authoritarianism, resistance and the human cost of tyranny. This list brings together films from across the globe, spanning decades and genres, that remind us of the dangers of unchecked power.

While masterpieces like Schindler’s List and Son of Saul profoundly address the Holocaust — history’s most horrific expression of the consequences of fascist thought — and war movies from The Dirty Dozen to Defiance vividly depict military resistance, we’ve chosen to leave them off our list to focus instead on films that explore the ideology of fascism itself: the systems, beliefs and societal impacts that enable authoritarian regimes to rise and thrive.

From Chaplin’s classic satire The Great Dictator to the brutal provocations of Pasolini’s Salo, from the allegorical alien apartheid of District 9 and the mocking militarism of Starship Troopers to the absurdist comedy of Jojo Rabbit, these films are not just stories of resistance — they are bold examinations of power and its corrosive effects on society. Dive in to remember, reflect and resist.