It was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough and stars Robert Downey Jr., Marisa Tomei, Dan Aykroyd, Penelope Ann Miller and Kevin Kline.

In the Victorian era East End of London, Chaplin escapes his poverty-stricken childhood by immersing himself in the world of variety circuit.

Over the years, Chaplin and his brother Sydney gain work with variety producer Fred Karno, who later sends him to the United States.

He creates the Tramp persona, and due to the terrible directorial abilities of Sennett's girlfriend Mabel Normand, he becomes his own director.

Years later, at a party thrown by Douglas Fairbanks, Chaplin dates child actress Mildred Harris.

Chaplin and Sydney flee with the footage, finish editing it in a Salt Lake City hotel, then smuggle it back to Los Angeles.

During McCarthyism, the Chaplins leave America together on a visit to Britain, but then the United States Attorney General revokes his re-entry permit.

Despite being initially resentful after two decades in exile and certain that no one will even remember him, he is moved to tears when the audience laughs at footage from his films and gives Chaplin the Academy Awards' longest standing ovation ever.

[4] According to Marc Wanamaker, who served as an advisor on the film, Attenborough had thought of making a miniseries at one point, to fully explore Chaplin's life.

[5] The film received mixed reviews, lauded for its high production values, but many critics dismissed it as an overly glossy biopic.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Chaplin boasts a terrific performance from Robert Downey, Jr. in the title role, but it isn't enough to overcome a formulaic biopic that pales in comparison to its subject's classic films.

In one of those acts of will and creativity that actors come up with when you least expect it, Downey becomes Chaplin, re-creating his character and his chilly soul so precisely that even the comedian’s daughter Geraldine, a featured player here, was both impressed and unnerved.

A 15th-anniversary edition was released by Lions Gate Entertainment (who obtained the distribution rights to the film in the interim under license from the copyright holder, StudioCanal) in 2008.

The anniversary edition contained extensive interviews with the producers, and included several minutes of home-movie footage shot on Chaplin's yacht.

The box for this DVD mistakenly lists the film's running time as 135 minutes, although it retains the 143-minute length of the original theatrical release.