Tag Archives: Soviet Union

Life is Beautiful, also known as Betrayed, is a joint Soviet-Italian film production directed by Grigory Chukhray. The main character of the ...

Othello is a film adaptation of the Shakespeare play, featuring Sergei Bondarchuk playing Othello himself and his wife, Irina Skobtseva, playing ...

While the deep Russian soul is in many ways immeasurable and undefinable, there are still those who can show it. Watch this beautiful rendition ...

The Red Snowball Tree is a heart-warming story about the ex-convinct, Yegor Prokudin, who tries to get his life back together and be a good man ...

The Russian Question is a classic Soviet film by Mikhail Romm that throws audiences back to the dawn of the Cold War. Based on a play by ...

The Red Tent is a joint Soviet-Italian film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov and featuring Sean Connery and Peter Finch. As such, it’s a ...

Viy is generally considered the most famous Russian horror film – really one of the few in a country that has experienced far too much real ...

Mister Designer is an exciting and a little eerie mystical drama about a sculptor who dreams of breathing life into his magnificent mannequin ...

The Captivating Star of Happiness is a beautiful film by ace director, Vladimir Motyl, that tells the story of the famous Decembrist uprising ...

The film, Daddy, Father Frost is Dead, released the year of the collapse of the USSR, reflects the problems of perestroika and the feeling of ...

Winter Evening in Gagra became a classic almost immediately after its release. This Karen Shakhnazarov’s film (the acclaimed director of ...

Jolly Fellows, also known as Moscow Laughs, was the first Soviet musical film. Director, Grigori Aleksandrov, wowed not just domestic audiences, ...

This is the final of four episodes in the beloved Cheburashka / Чебурашка series. In this episode, the Crocodile Gena realizes that Cheburashka ...

This is the third of four episodes in the beloved Cheburashka / Чебурашка series. In this episode, Cheburashka and the Crocodile Gena leave by ...

This is the second of four episodes in the beloved Cheburashka / Чебурашка series. In this episode, Crocodile Gena is celebrating his birthday. ...

This is the first of four episodes in the beloved Cheburashka / Чебурашка series. In this episode, we are introduced to the series’ two main ...

We’re from Jazz or Jazzman is all about the difficult path the formation of jazz took in the Soviet Union. Kostya Ivanov is a student in a ...

Once upon a time “Cherry Town” was the name of a small village near Moscow. Today, however, thousands of Muscovites live there and it ...

Aerograd is a 1930s film from influential director, Alexander Dovzhenko. Set in the Far East region of Russia, the movie centers on the struggle ...

A miracle descends on the quiet, sleepy village of Bersenevka. A man appears to whom the young Tanya is ready to give her heart. Komarov is a ...

Come Tomorrow tells the story of a young talented woman’s journey from the Siberian taiga to the music conservatory in Moscow.  Frosya has ...

Karlson Returns is the sequel to the beloved Russian cartoon, Junior and Karlson. The housekeeper, Freken Bock, appears in Junior’s ...

A Necklace for My Beloved (Samkauli satrposatvis) is a 1971 lyrical comedy by legendary Georgian director, Tengiz Abuladze. It is based on the ...

Brief Encounters is a beautiful rom-com by famed director, Kira Muratova. In the film, Nadia leaves her village for the big city where she meets ...

The Communist is an ideology-ridden, but also beautifully created film. Hugely popular in the Soviet Union, the movie also won its director, Yuli ...

Rock (Рок) is a cult documentary by acclaimed director, Alexei Uchitel. Better than any other film, it shows the life of the underground rock ...

Ashik Kerib is a Georgian film that is acclaimed director, Sergei Parajanov’s final work. Parajanov dedicated the film to his good friend, ...

The Legend of Suram Fortress is legendary director, Sergei Parajanov’s first film since his release from the Soviet Gulag prison system. ...

Fragment of an Empire is an extraordinarily impressive classic and the epitome of the Soviet propaganda film. It tells the a story of a Russian ...

No Path Through Fire is acclaimed director Gleb Panfilov’s first feature film. It tells the interesting story of a talented nurse trying to ...

Dead Man’s Letters is the first feature film of the masterful director, Konstantin Lopushansky. It deals with a popular theme of the late ...

A Visitor to a Museum is a 1989 film directed by Konstantin Lopushansky. Like his earlier 1986 work, Dead Man’s Letters, it explores what a ...

This short film is a stylishly constructed thriller that will appeal to a wide range of viewers. It tells the story of a small Soviet town that ...

Boule de Suif (Пышка) is a 1934 Soviet drama by Mikhail Romm. An adaptation of the eponymous short story by Guy de Maupassant, Boule de Suif is a ...

Trial on the Road (Проверка на дорогах) is the directorial debut of acclaimed director, Aleksey German. In English, it is also sometimes known as ...

The protagonist, a lazy pen-pusher, gets the sack for his bureaucratic idleness, and learns that the way back into the job market depends on ...

This bleak late soviet-era drama follows the career of Malyanov, a young medical school graduate who has been sent to work in Turkmenia. Here he ...

The Killers (Убийцы) was Andrei Tarkovsky’s first film. He co-directed this short film along with his classmates, Alexander Gordon and ...

Bezhin Lug (Bezhin Meadow) was to be a Soviet film about a young farm boy whose father attempts to betray the government for political reasons by ...

An older official has long suspected his wife of infidelity. His worst fears are justified on the anniversary of their wedding, when he comes ...

Two young directors adapted the short stories of two Russian authors whose works had been banned for decades, and so their film ended up in the ...

A pregnant young woman wants to settle down with a good-for-nothing villager but is wooed by a suitor from the city.

Pavel and Pavelina leave their rural countryside homes and move to Moscow to find work. Once there, they find that urban life is not what they ...

The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, ...

A new doctor from Moscow arrives at a provincial mental institution. His interest is the peculiarities of the psyche of a patient who believes ...

Tanya Morozova, an illiterate but industrious textile factory worker, finds happiness through her education and the Stakhanovite movement. She ...

Praised for its fine photography and production design if not its narrative, Sergei Bondarchuk directed this adaptation of the tale by Alexander ...

The plot of the film is the love of a married woman, Anna Karenina, and a young officer, Alexei Vronsky. Anna leaves the family in search of ...

This late 60s Russian films is set in 1920, just 3 years after the October revolution. Folks had the choice between red and white, revolution and ...

This is the third and final episode in the three-part Russian Winnie-the-Pooh series. In this episode, Pooh searches for a tail for his friend, ...

This is the second episode in the three-part Russian Winnie-the-Pooh series. In this episode, Pooh and Piglet visit Rabbit for a meal with honey. ...

This is the first episode in the three-part Russian Winnie-the-Pooh series. In this episode, Pooh attempts to take honey from a beehive with the ...

Romm’s “Ordinary Fascism” pulls out all the stops in its selection of documentary material to draw the viewer not only into ...

The film is dedicated to the great Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). It tells of the last twenty years of the great master’s life, ...

The Dog in Boots by is yet another interpretation of the immortal Dumas novel, “The Three Musketeers.” What makes it special, beyond ...

The Canterville Ghost is a cartoon adaptation of the Oscar Wilde short story of the same name.

A story about the young princess Zabava and a poor chimney sweep named Ivan. The two are in love, but their different social status stands in ...

The film debut of famed director, Sergei Bondarchuk, Fate of a Man tells the gripping story of a man who lost everything. Based on the book of ...

After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused ...

This movie, the Soviet Union’s first Academy Award, is still the only Russian-language winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. The ...

Agony is a two-part feature film about one of the most notorious personalities in Russian history, Grigory Rasputin. This beautiful and ...

A military explorer meets and befriends a Goldi man in Russia’s unmapped forests. A deep and abiding bond evolves between the two men, one ...

Surrounded by a few party officials, Alexei Ivanov, a stakhanovist smelter, is decorated by Stalin. The “Little Father of the ...

War and Peace (Война и мир / Voyna i mir) is a historical epic shot between 1961-1967 and released over 1965–67. This Soviet movie, co-written ...

Bukovina, a Ukrainian Land (Буковина, зeмля Українськa / Bukovina, zemlya Ukrainskaya) is a 1940 Soviet propaganda documentary film. It was shot ...

Ballad of a Soldier (Баллада о солдате / Ballada o soldate) is a 1959 film directed by World War Two veteran, Grigoriy Chukhray. It’s one ...

A portrait of a Russian community in the late 19th century based on Chekhov’s stories, featuring the author as observer and narrator.

A story based on the famous play by Anton Chekhov.

The history of Jewish people in Russia, 1918 – 1948.

Three from Prostokvashino (Трое из Простоквашино / Troye iz Prostokvashino) is a popular Soviet hand-drawn cartoon series. This first episode is ...

At Home Among Strangers, a Stranger Among His Own (Свой среди чужих, чужой среди своих / Svoy sredi chuzhikh, chuzhoy sredi svoikh) is a 1974 ...

Deciding that it is time he was married, Podkolyosin, a long-time bachelor (and minor court councillor), engages a matchmaker, Fyokla, to find ...

A game-changing Soviet sci-fi movie directed by Pavel Klushantsev. Often included in American film school curricula, the film has influenced ...

A musical comedy based on classical play by Félix Lope de Vega.

Lady with the Dog, a famous film adaptation of the well-known Chekhov story of the same name, is essential viewing. It describes how a fateful ...

A brilliant continuation of the saga, now in the city. The target of young patriots is a map held in the safe locker in the headquarters of ...

Dan’ka’s and Ksanka’s childhood in the village has been brutally ended when their father was killed by the White Guard officer ...

Aelita: Queen of Mars (Аэлита) is a 1924 Soviet sci-fi film directed by Yakov Protazanov. The film is based on the eponymous novel by Alexi ...

The House on Trubnaya is one of the finest silent films to come out of the Soviet Union in the late 1920s. It’s a prime example of the ...

Also known as The Old and the New (Staroye i Novoye), The General Line illustrates Lenin’s stated imperative that the nation move from agrarian ...

The cinematic adaptation of “The Storm” play by Aleksandr Ostrovsky. In a provincial town on the Volga River, the young and sensitive ...

Yussuf and Aliosha are two shipwrecked sailor on an island in the Caspian Sea. They start working has sailor and mechanic for the fishboats of ...

A 1935 USA trade-paper reviewer called it… “an impressive and technically outstanding historical drama dealing with czarist terrorism ...

This documentary, made up of 3 episodes, is based on three songs sung by anonymous people in Soviet Russia about Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Young and beautiful girl (Anna Sten), lives near Moscow, earning a living making hats for a fashion store in Moscow. Due to the requirements of ...

Revolutionary uprising of Georgian laborers in 1905.

The spiritual and material misery of a group of people inhabiting the hotel of the title during the War.

A hapless loser (with the surname of Loser) undergoes misadventures with avaracious clergy, a tired horse, and a walking granary (among other ...

The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin is a rip-roaring communist, sci-fi adventure from 1965. It is based on the novel by Aleksey Tolstoy. The ...

Strike is director, Sergei Eisenstein’s first feature film and is a true masterpiece of world cinema. In it, Eisenstein gave full vent to ...

This landmark documentary by cinematic visionary, Dziga Vertov, promotes his then new filmmaking movement of the same name – Kino Eye ...

Soviet film based on Nikolai Gogol stories “Nevsky Prospekt” and “The Overcoat”.

In The Magic Weaver, two illustrious Soviet storytellers – writer, Yevgeny Schwartz, and director, Alexander Rou – have come together ...

Primarily a biographical documentary about the military career of Alexander Vasilvich Suvorov, who was Field Marshal of the armies of Catherine ...

Kutuzov is a biopic about Prince Kutuzov, the Russian Field marshal who defeated Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée in a brutal war of ...

Taken from a Lermentov play, Sergey Gerasimov’s Maskarad (1941) begins when beautiful Nina (Makarova) loses a bracelet during a masked ...

As she works in her tedious office job, Maria Ivanovna dreams about being married, and she has particular hopes that her co-worker Nikodim ...

My Universities (Moi universiteti) is the last installment of Russian director Mark Donskoy’s “Maxim Gorki” trilogy. Having ...