Drama

Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each ...

The House I Live In is a charming black and white drama by Soviet director, Lev Kulidzhanov. The film describes the pre-war and post-war lives ...

In 1946, a soldier fathers a child then dies before its birth. Jump to 1952: on a train, the child and his mother meet a handsome soldier who ...

Alexander Nevsky (Александр Невский) is a 1938 Soviet classic directed by Sergei Eisenstein. The film depicts famed Russian historical figure, ...

One-Two, Soldiers Were Going… is another superb war movie by director, Leonid Bykov, of Only Old Men Are Going to Battle fame. The film was ...

Pirosmani is a beautiful biographical film about the self-taught Georgian painter, Niko Pirosmani. Pirosmani was the founder of the artistic ...

Quiet Flows the Don (Тихий Дон / Tikhiy Don) is an epic 1957 Soviet film directed by Sergei Gerasimov. Split into three parts, the film is based ...

A five-person team of gold prospectors in the Yukon has just begun to enjoy great success when one of the members snaps, and suddenly kills two ...

Officers is a movie about two friends’ love for their motherland, for life itself, and, of course, for a woman. Through the lifelong ...

A film-in-film story set in a provincial town in Russia. Pasha is an amateur actress who plays a witch at a local club, but her dream is to play ...

Russian provincial town in the middle of the 1930s Stalin’s Great Purge. Ivan Lapshin, the head of the local police, does what he has to ...

This piercing Soviet drama tells the story of two unfortunate strangers who, by the will of fate, become one family. Lovers of Soviet comedy will ...

Upon Prince Myshkin’s return to St. Petersburg from an asylum in Switzerland, he becomes beguiled by the lovely young Aglaya, daughter of a ...

Tomorrow Was the War is an exquisite drama about the life of Soviet schoolchildren during the last quiet days before WWII. The film centers ...

An ethnographic treasure that documents with visual bravado the harsh conditions of life in the isolated mountain village of Ushkul.

Set on the Russian steppes and filmed in black-and-white, it is the story of a group of peasants seeking revenge against the oil company that ...

Based on the Vera Panova book about a complicated relationships between 8-years boy and his new stepfather.

A group of Russian teenagers spend their summer at a summer camp. Mitia falls in love and gets so occupied with his own problems that he forgets ...

This phantasmagorical animated short is a superb adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story of the same name. A man is on the verge of ...

Katerina Izmailova is a filmization of Dmitry Shostakovich’s long-suppressed 1936 opera. Galina Vishnevskaya stars as Katerina, a bored ...

“I Am Walking Along Moscow” aka “Ya Shagayu Po Moskve” (1963) is a charming lyrical comedy directed by Georgi Daneliya in ...

A twelve years old girl Lena who has come to live with her grandfather in a small Russian town is being bullied by her classmates. She took the ...

Three Poplars at Plyushchikha is a legendary Soviet melodrama about a simple village woman who, once in Moscow, changes her worldview and life. ...

This is truly the greatest film adaptation of Dostoevsky’s classic, Crime and Punishment, there is. Directed by Lev Kulidzhanov and ...

Four geologists are searching for a diamond mine in the wilderness of Siberia. After locating the mine, they set out to deliver their findings to ...

I Am Twenty is a coming-of-age film from the 1960s that demonstrates the differences between the Soviet wartime generation and that which came ...

War correspondent Lopatin takes a 20-day-leave from his hard work at the front in 1942. He travels to faraway Tashkent to meet the family of the ...

Platon Ryabinin, a pianist, is traveling by train to a distant town of Griboedov to visit his father. He gets off to have lunch during a twenty ...

Assa (Асса) is a classic Soviet crime film from 1987 that retains a cult status in Russia to this day. The movie is credited with bringing ...

In this gentle comedy, an unpopular resident in a Russian village has his life completely changed when he announces, entirely on a whim and just ...

To the young lieutenant Maleshkin the war is a minor obstacle, if compared to his personal battle to command his subordinates, while conducting ...

Tears Were Falling is a beautiful fairy tale for adults. Prolific actor, Evgeni Leonov, plays Vasin, a loving husband, father, and all-round ...

The Bremen Town Musicians is a musical cartoon based on the fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. The cartoon is a cult hit in the former ...

The Plea is the first movie in Tengiz Abuladze’s trilogy that includes The Wishing Tree and Repentance. The film is a romantic drama based ...

An unabashed exercise in cinema stylistics, I Am Cuba is pro-Castro/anti-Batista rhetoric dressed up in the finest clothes. The film’s four ...

Set during the last days of the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution. The Crimea Peninsula is the last stronghold of the White Guard, ...

The Island is an incredibly powerful film that wrestles with the ideas of sin and atonement. In a cold, secluded island in northern Russia, ...

Andrey Pavlovich Buzykin, who makes a living by teaching at an institute and translating English literature, is cheating on his wife. ...

At the dilapidated country estate of Anna Petrovna Voinitseva, a group of feckless Russian aristocrats whiles away a summer afternoon. ...

Ivan Mirosnikov, a cheeky young man in the Gorbachev era, is trying to figure out what to do with his life (he’s not in college, and the ...

The Fool is another masterpiece by director, Yuri Bykov. The movie tells the story of a simple, honest plumber who goes up against an entire ...

Masterfully done re-telling of Bulgakov’s brilliant play (itself a version of the novel, “White Guard”), “Days of the ...

Love and Lies (also called Could One Imagine?) is a cute teen romantic melodrama about first love. On September 1st, a new student joins ...

Battleship Potemkin (Броненосец «Потёмкин» / Bronenosets Potyomkin) is a 1925 Soviet film directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It is widely considered ...

White Sun of the Desert is one of the very best Soviet Westerns, or “Osterns” there is. The film revolves around the adventures of a ...

The film is about a group of people who in other times wouldn’t have anything in common, some of them innocent bystanders, some moral ...

The 1975 film by Georgi Daneliya “Afonya” was an unexpected commercial hit in USSR. The main character “Afonya” Borshev ...

Dragon is a bloody dictator, who kills every opponent. People live hopelessly, until Lancelot comes to save the beautiful Elsa. Lancelot can only ...

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a 1965 Ukrainian film by Soviet-Armenian filmmaker, Sergei Parajanov, that is based on the novel by Ukrainian ...

Stalker (Сталкер) is a brilliant 1979 Soviet sci-fi film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Loosely based on the Strugatsky Brothers’ 1972 novel, ...

Solaris – a film about people’s erotic problems in outer space. Or so you’ll see… About Solaris Solaris (Солярис / ...

The evolution of a nation during six decades of turbulent history is dramatized via two families from opposing classes.

Sergei Bondarchuk’s They Fought for Their Country has often been called the best film about WWII. In the summer of 1942, the Soviet Union ...

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears is a classic, Oscar-winning Soviet movie. It’s said to depict the famous Russian soul better than any ...

Ivan’s Childhood is a poetic journey through the shards and shadows of one boy’s war-ravaged youth. The first feature film of ...

Mirror (Зеркало) is one the most beautiful movies by acclaimed arthouse director, Andrei Tarkovsky. This semi-autobiographical film describes the ...

Cinematographic adaptation of classical Russian play “Dowry-less” by A. Ostrovsky. Noble but poor widow seeks to arrange marriage for ...