Russian Film Hub serves as an encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet cinema. The primary value add of Russian Film Hub is making exploring Russian and Soviet movies as easy and accessible as possible for non-Russian speakers. One way we help Russian film enthusiasts is helping them find reputable streaming platforms where Russian movies are available to watch. As such, we link to a number of movies on streaming platforms like YouTube, Tubi, Amazon Prime Video, and Vimeo. The vast majority of movies that Russian Film Hub links to consists of content from Russian film studios and distributors like Mosfilm, Lenfilm, Gorkyfilm, and Central Partnership – the copyright holders.
Generally when these copyright holders upload videos to the streaming websites we link to, they enter into a royalty-free licensing agreement that grants public usage rights. That’s how Russian Film Hub is able to get access to such a large, high quality film catalog that available to watch – mostly for free.
Although the owners of these videos relinquish certain rights by using the streaming platform, like YouTube, Tubi, and Amazon, they do still hold a number of rights that Russian Film Hub fully respects and complies with. These copyright holders retain all economic and moral rights to their videos.
The video content you see on Russian Film Hub is always hosted by one of these third-party websites: YouTube, Tubi, Amazon Prime Video, Vimeo, and Apple iTunes.
As such, Russian Film Hub is not an online service provider as defined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We do not provide legal copyright owners or non-copyright holders with the ability to publish on the internet by uploading, storing, and displaying various media utilizing our services. And to be absolutely clear, we do not host any video content on our own servers.
As such, in the unlikely event that you believe infringing material appears on this website, your best bet for taking down the content is to contact the following video hosts here: YouTube, Tubi, Amazon, Vimeo. If you notify us in writing on our Contact page, we will ensure that content is not on our website and will gladly work with you to help enforce your copyright.
If you are a copyright holder from the former Soviet Union and would like any help enforcing your copyright in the US, we are glad to help you navigate US copyright.
Please note – we want to make absolutely clear that we have zero connection to another Russian movie-related website, Soviet Movies Online. Soviet Movies Online is a pirate website that flagrantly ignores international copyright laws. Although Soviet Movies Online is frequently targeted with DMCA takedown requests by copyright holders, they still manage to host illegal video content through hosting on Vimeo, Dropbox, and their own servers. We condemn their abuse of international copyright laws as well as their hosting enablers.
There are three main reasons so many Russian movies are free to watch online: public domain status, the legacy of Soviet copyright mores, and rampant illegal streaming in Russia today.
Russian Film Hub exists because, despite Russian and Soviet cinema being so unusually available online, it is also highly inaccessible to non-Russian speakers. By cataloging and organizing these films and sharing versions with subtitles in English and other languages, Russian Film Hub empowers people around the world to find, watch, and enjoy Russian movies to the max. As such, we try to be the crucial interlocutor the non-Russian speaking world needs in this historically important part of world cinema.