The Great Dictator [he] was terrified, not knowing what to expect next." The Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in Beverly Hills, California, has a copy of "The Great Dictator" script. The library permits viewers of the script to read it and take notes, but prohibits photocopying of it. In 1997, "The Great Dictator" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film No. 37 in its "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list. The film
Dictator novel as being one of structure, and therefore the problem of the state "manifested through the will of some monstrous personage violating the ordinary individual's privacy, both of home and of consciousness." In the early twentieth century, the Spaniard Ramón del Valle-Inclán's "Tirano Banderas" (1926) acted as a key influence on those authors whose goal was to critique power structures and the status quo. Latin American novels that explore political themes, but that do not centre upon the rule of a particular dictator, are informally classified as “not quite dictator novels”. For example, "Libro de Manuel" (A Manual for Manuel, 1973),