Heart of a Dog

Heart of a Dog 1988

7.86

"Heart of a Dog" is a Soviet film adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s iconic novella. Set in 1920s Moscow, it tells the satirical and darkly humorous story of a stray dog named Sharik, who is transformed into a human by Professor Preobrazhensky through a daring medical experiment. The resulting man, Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov, embodies the social and ideological tensions of early Soviet society. With its sharp critique of class struggle, human nature, and the perils of radical change, the film is celebrated for its faithful adaptation, brilliant performances, and rich allegorical depth.

1988

King Lear

King Lear 1970

6.50

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

1970

The White Sun of the Desert

The White Sun of the Desert 1969

7.22

The setting is the east shore of the Caspian Sea (today's Turkmenistan) where the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov has been fighting the Civil War in Russian Asia for a number of years. After being hospitalised and then demobbed, he sets off home to join his wife, only to be caught up in a desert fight between a Red Army cavalry unit and Basmachi guerrillas. The cavalry unit commander, Rahimov, "convinces" Sukhov to help, temporarily, with the protection of abandoned women of the Basmachi guerrilla leader Abdullah's harem. Leaving a young Red Army soldier, Petrukha, to assist Sukhov with the task, Rahimov and his cavalry unit set out to pursue fleeing Abdullah.Sukhov and women from Abdullah's harem return to a nearby shore town. Soon, looking for a seaway across the border, Abdullah and his gang come to the same town...

1969

Hamlet

Hamlet 1964

7.13

Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations.

1964

Sideburns

Sideburns 1990

5.30

A small provincial town is home to two rival teenage gangs, one devoted to loose living and punk music and the other a collection of narrow-minded bodybuilders obsessed with order and convinced of their own moral rectitude. However, this cosy state of affairs is upset by the arrival of two strangers dressed like Pushkin, the famous early 19th century Russian poet, who proceed to found their own organisation, dedicated ostensibly to the memory of the great writer and the "salvation of Russia". Gradually, they begin to assume control of the town...

1990

Amphibian Man

Amphibian Man 1961

6.76

People living at a seashore town are frightened by reports of an unknown creature called "the sea devil". Nobody knows what it is, but it's really the son of doctor Salvator. The doctor performed surgery on his son and now young Ichtiander can live under water. This gives him certain advantages, but also creates a lot of problems.

1961

Don Quixote

Don Quixote 1957

6.46

Senor Quexana has read so many books on chivalry that he believes that he is the knight Don Quixote de la Mancha. So Don Quixote sets off on his horse, accompanied by his squire Sancho Panza on a mule, to perform valiant deeds. They mistakenly save the Lady Altisidora who is so amused that she invites them to visit the Duke to provide some merriment at court. Among other deeds, Don Quixote frees some prisoners, who then turn upon him, and Don Quixote attacks a windmill that he imagines is a monstrous wizard.

1957

My Friend Ivan Lapshin

My Friend Ivan Lapshin 1985

6.78

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 do. And he does it well.

1985

Red Bees

Red Bees 1972

6.00

In 1922, in a small town, the boys formed a pioneer squad and named it "Red Bees."

1972

The Captivating Star of Happiness

The Captivating Star of Happiness 1975

5.65

In December 1825, distinguished members of the Russian military, most of whom were quite affluent and of noble lineage, took it upon themselves to stir revolution against the autocratic and tyrannical Czar Nikolai I in the wake of his not honoring the drafting of a constitution for the Russian people. The revolution failed miserably and the conspirators (known as the Decembrists) were weeded out by the czar himself. One by one, each of the conspirators confess and are systematically exiled to the harsh winters of Siberia, slated to work and wither in a prison/mine. The wives of the conspirators are faced with the prospect of leaving the bosom of wealth and family (including their own children) to be with their husbands in the brutal Siberian locale. If they agree to this, they face having their illustrious social stations stripped away and certain disdain from everyone around them...

1975

It

It 1990

4.94

The bureaucratic epos on the dialogues and plots of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin "The History of a Town". In a metaphorical and grotesque form, the film conveys the history of Russia from the calling of the Varangians until the end of the 20th century. The film traces the change of the “chiefs” of the county town of Glupov, which differ in varying degrees of tyranny and the corresponding total number of “killed” city residents. The heads of the city easily guess the former heads of the Russian state and the USSR.

1990

Moonsund

Moonsund 1987

3.25

Captain of a Russian battleship "Novik" Artenyev is in love with a beautiful lady Klara who is a German spy. They cannot be together because of the war and their professions. But they are in such love that all the war battles and battleships do not stop them, only their duties do.

1987

At War as at War

At War as at War 1969

5.97

The film tells about the fighting everyday life of the crew of self-propelled guns during the liberation of Right-Bank Ukraine. Junior Lieutenant Maleshkin, an unshooted graduate of the school, commands the crew of the self-propelled gun SU-100. All the subordinates of Maleshkin are older than him and much more experienced. The authority of the young commander is tested at every step, he quarrels, then reconciles with his crew. In addition, Maleshkin is very dissatisfied with the battery commander, he now and then threatens to remove the sluggish young officer from the command. In the crew of Maleshkin, various troubles constantly occur: either the driver will catch the commandant’s eyes in an untidy, grimy look, then a combat grenade with a dropped check will be discovered in the car, or a breakdown will occur just at the moment the regiment enters the march. Ending in a sprawling battle against German forces.

1969

Torpedo Bombers

Torpedo Bombers 1983

5.60

In 1944 a Soviet marine air force unit stationed near Murmansk is fighting off the German bombers attacking the British navy convoys supplying the Soviet Union with war materials under the lend-lease agreement.

1983

Dead Man's Letters

Dead Man's Letters 1986

6.77

In a world after the nuclear apocalypse a scholar helps a small group of children and adults survive, staying with them in the basement of the former museum of history. In his mind he writes letters to his son — though it is obvious that they will never be read.

1986

Chapayev

Chapayev 1934

5.90

An account of the peasant turned mythical military hero Vasily Chapayev, charting his campaign in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.

1934

The Living Corpse

The Living Corpse 1969

4.67

Based on the play of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. According to Fyodor Protasov, the surrounding life is riddled with dirt and falsehood. He does not want to participate "in all this dirty trick", he does not have the courage to fight it, and he chooses the third way — to stage suicide.

1969

Vassa

Vassa 1983

6.10

Screen adaptation of the play by Maxim Gorky "Vassa Zheleznova". Saga of the death of a merchant family. For many years, Vassa Zheleznova has been leading the family business and, despite the inconspicuous children, her dissolute husband, alcoholic brother, and revolutionary daughter-in-law, is trying to maintain at least the appearance of a normal family... 1913 is coming, and everything that was dedicated to her life is wrecked.

1983

The Fountain

The Fountain 1988

4.80

A story of a Moscow's apartment building that is slowly falling apart, literally. First, the hot water has been cut off by an old man from Asia, who could not stand it being wasted. Then the roof is starting to collapse. Finally, the electricity has been cut off. All the tenants of the building, no matter how different they were, find themselves in the same situation.

1988

Jack Vosmyorkin, American

Jack Vosmyorkin, American 1986

5.60

Jack Vosmyorkin, young American with Russian origins decides to return to Russia in order to watch October Revolution in action.

1986