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

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

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

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

The Second Circle

The Second Circle 1990

6.30

A man tries to come to terms with his father's death and to deal with the mundane details of his burial in a society cut off from spirituality.

1990

The Blue Bird

The Blue Bird 1976

5.30

Peasant children Mytyl and Tyltyl are led on a magical quest for the fabulous Blue Bird of Happiness by the fairy Berylune. On their journey, they're accompanied by the anthropomorphized presences of a Dog, a Cat, Light, Fire, and Bread, among other entities.

1976

The Bonus

The Bonus 1974

6.50

A small construction team led by Potapov suddenly refuses to receive a bonus payment from their company for exceeding performance targets. The team accuses its construction company HQ with artificially reducing the targets, so they can be easily exceeded. It makes the management looks good, yet leads to frequent downtime reducing earnings for common construction workers even with fake bonuses. On a hastily organized meeting the management tries to subdue the "unruly" gang leader charging that he cannot know all details. It turned out that Potapov and his team prepared a detailed business analysis, which proved their point. Managers, who had different interests and positions, have to decide how to deal with the real problem leading to unexpected results.

1974

The White Sun of the Desert

The White Sun of the Desert 1969

7.20

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

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

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

Genius

Genius 1991

7.10

He is overly intelligent... He is genius... And he's just trying to make his life a little bit better in an new era post-communist Russia.

1991

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

Dead Man's Letters

Dead Man's Letters 1986

6.79

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

Sherlock Holmes in the 20th Century

Sherlock Holmes in the 20th Century 1987

7.15

This film version was released before the premiere of the full two-part television version (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Twentieth Century Approaches). In this version the entire plot of the story “Bruce-Partington Drawings” was deleted.

1987

Tough Kids

Tough Kids 1983

5.60

A former athlete runs a camp dedicated to reforming juvenile criminals, a tough job with no quick payoffs.

1983

First Encounter - Last Encounter

First Encounter - Last Encounter 1987

5.30

The story concerns the events in Saint Petersburg on the eve of the First World War. Private detective Petya Chukhontsev, a law student who has not completed his studies, investigates the case of the murdered inventor Kuklin. He was murdered exactly as he predicted during a New Year's visit to Chukhontsev. While investigating the Kuklin case, Petya soon realizes that the central figure in this case is the German Scholz, the owner, who cheaply buys up the inventions of Russian craftsmen and hands them over to the spy Siegfried Gay, an advisor to the German embassy. . However, Petya will soon understand that it is better to mind his own business...

1987

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 Brave Seven

The Brave Seven 1936

4.30

Six polar explorers arrives to a remote island in Arctic for a year-long scientific expedition. When their ship departs, they unpack only to find a young stowaway, who romanticized Arctic heroes, and tried to join them on multiple occasions finally succeeding. That's how six became seven. Life of polar explorers is tough, and full of danger. During one year they are largely isolated from the mainland, and should survive using their resourcefulness, smarts, knowledge, and existing supplies with occasional unreliable radio communications. The Seven are resilient, cheerful, they forged a true friendship. Now they are ready to face the unforgiving Arctic.

1936

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