This film analyzes the movement of a society from freedom to tyranny in five steps. It clearly shows how those in positions of power may cultivate the conditions of tyranny in any population by demonstrating how easily ordinary people may be manipulated into compliance with “authority”, into silence before criminality and even how easily most people may be coerced into performing profoundly immoral acts. Ultimately tyrannies happen because ordinary people are surprisingly willing to do tyranny's dirty work. We all need to become sensitive to the conditions under which ordinary people can be led to do "evil" deeds and to take a position of resistance to tyranny at the very first signs of its existence.