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Essential Russian Cinema

Hard to Be a God (2013)
Aleksei Yuryevich German · 6 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla
A group of scientists is sent to the planet Arkanar to help the local civilization, which is in the Medieval phase of its own history, to find the right path to progress. Their task is a difficult one: they cannot interfere violently and in no case can they kill. The scientist Rumata tries to save the local intellectuals from their punishment and cannot avoid taking a position.
Mutter und Sohn (1997)
Aleksandr Sokurov · 5 critic votes
A man goes for a walk through the countryside with his dying mother.
Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998)
Aleksei Yuryevich German · 5 critic votes
Streaming on ARROW, Klassiki
Military doctor General Klenski is arrested in Stalin's Russia in 1953 during an anti-Semitic political campaign accused of being a participant in so-called "doctors' plot".
Russian Ark (2002)
Alexander Sokurov · 5 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Klassiki
A ghost and a French marquis wander through the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, encountering scenes from many different periods of its history.
Leviathan (2014)
Andrey Zvyagintsev · 3 critic votes
Streaming on Klassiki
In a Russian coastal town, Kolya is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Kolya and his family.
The Chekist (1992)
Aleksandr Rogozhkin · 2 critic votes
Srubov is a part of CHEKA, the secret police Lenin established after the Bolshevik Revolution. They arrest, interview for a minute, try in ten seconds, and execute intellectuals, aristocrats, Jews, clergy, and their families. In the building basement, five people at a time are shot as they stand naked facing wooden doors. No one to remember their last words; no martyrs, just anonymous bodies. Daily, the kangaroo court, the executions, the loading of bodies onto wagons. Srubov is cold, distant, sexually dysfunctional, and a deep thinker, hated by former friends and his family. As he tries to reason the nature of revolution and the purpose of CHEKA, he slowly goes mad.
Belovy (1994)
Viktor Kossakovsky · 2 critic votes
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
Portrait of a troubled peasant family. The film tells the story of two times widow Anna Belova who lives together with her brother Mikhail. Blending the two personalities, Kosakovsky characterizes the true Russian soul: she is the rational worker, honest and strong - he is the drunken poet, the idealist, his philosophy fades into radical nonsense time after time.
The Return (2003)
Andrey Zvyagintsev · 2 critic votes
Two young brothers in contemporary Russia are reunited with a father they know only from an old photograph after his sudden return from a long absence. With their mother’s reluctant consent, they set out on a remote trip that quickly becomes an uneasy test of authority, trust, and masculinity. As the journey moves deeper into the wilderness, the fragile bonds between father and sons are pushed to their limits.
Faust (2011 film) (2011)
Alexander Sokurov · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla
A doctor in early 19th-century Germany becomes infatuated with the sister of a man he unintentionally killed and bargains with the Devil incarnate to conjure their union in exchange for his soul.
Closeness (2017)
Kantemir Balagov · 2 critic votes
Streaming on Kanopy, Kino Film Collection
1998, Nalchik. A Jewish family is in trouble: the youngest son and his bride do not come home, and in the morning, a ransom note arrives. The ransom is so high that the family is forced not only to sell its small business, but also to seek help from its fellow tribesmen.
Loveless (2017)
Andrey Zvyagintsev · 2 critic votes
Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, they are impatient to start again, to turn the page – even if it means threatening to abandon their 12-year-old son Alyosha. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alyosha disappears.
The Cameraman's Revenge (1912)
Ladislas Starevich · 1 critic vote
A jilted husband takes his revenge by filming his wife and her lover and showing the result at the local cinema.
For Luck (1917)
Yevgeni Bauer · 1 critic vote
Since Zoya Verenskaya's husband passed away ten years ago, she has been devoted to her daughter Lee. At present, Lee is in poor health, and she is in danger of losing her eyesight. Zoya's suitor Dmitry wants to get married, but Zoya is determined to wait until Lee is better. Then, on a vacation in the Crimea, they learn Lee's true feelings for Dmitry, and suddenly all of their lives are thrown into turmoil.
The Dying Swan (1917)
Yevgeni Bauer · 1 critic vote
After being betrayed by her playboy lover, a heartbroken mute young woman joins a ballet company; during a performance of “The Dying Swan,” she enraptures a painter obsessed with portraying death genuinely.
Spiritual Voices. From the Diaries of War. A Narration in Five Episodes (1995)
Alexander Sokurov · 1 critic vote
In 1994, Alexander Sokurov accompanied Russian troops assigned to a frontier military post at the Tajikistan/Afghanistan border to film their experiences. While unnamed tribal forces occasionally engaged the troops in skirmishes, Sokurov’s haunting documentary chronicles the downtime between activity.
Tender Years (2000)
Sergei Solovyov · 1 critic vote
A movie which at first seems like a simple life story of an ordinary young man slowly evolves into an extraordinarily told ballade with twofold meaning - sad and optimistic at the same time...
The Head (2003)
Svetlana Baskova · 1 critic vote
The Soviet Russia of old is an immobile head without a body that appears in various locations, clashing with the morals and sentiments of a modern rich man. This man seeks advise from the head but finds that it is annoyingly unresponsive or unhelpful as it sends him on various missions and tests. At times he uses violence or oral rape to get what he wants until he grows too exasperated. Most of the movie consists of improvised dialogue or rants, and meandering scenes in a weapons shop, a railway, and a meeting where the man performs a bizarre magic performance with chickens, eggs and a cardboard box..
Tender's Heat: Wild Wild Beach (2006)
Aleksandr Rastorguyev · 1 critic vote
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
A drunk couple spend their summer-holiday at sea. Their life is not everything they hoped for, and abuse is part of their relationship. At sea they dream about love and understanding, and we observe their fellow countrymen spending their holidays on the same beach. Tragedy, comedy, love, hate, sex : it is all there.
The Island (2006)
Pavel Lungin · 1 critic vote
Somewhere in Northern Russia in a small Russian Orthodox monastery lives an unusual man whose bizarre conduct confuses his fellow monks, while others who visit the island believe that the man has the power to heal, exorcise demons and foretell the future.
Cargo 200 (2007)
Aleksei Balabanov · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Hoopla
While returning to Leningrad from a visit to his brother, Professor Artyom's car breaks down and he finds assistance at an isolated farmhouse occupied by Alexey, his wife, a Vietnamese laborer, and a stranger who wanders around the farm. When his car is repaired, Artyom leaves, drunk on moonshine, and students Valera and Angelika arrive. After Valera gets drunk, the stranger abducts Angelika.
The Banishment (2007)
Andrey Zvyagintsev · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy
While vacationing in the countryside at his childhood home, a woman suddenly reveals to her husband that she is expecting a child – but not his.
Morphine (2008)
Aleksei Balabanov · 1 critic vote
The year is 1917. We are in the Russian countryside. It is the middle of freezing winter. A pale young, newly educated doctor arrives. Having to deal with one medical challenge after another he soon becomes the center of everyone's attention. To soothe the impressions of human suffering he turns to morphine.
A Bitter Taste of Freedom (2011)
Marina Goldovskaya · 1 critic vote
In her quest to uncover the wrongdoings of the Russian authorities, Anna Politkovskaya inspired awe in some and fear in countless others. At age 48 she was assassinated for simply doing her job. This documentary is based on Anna's conversations with filmmaker Marina Goldovskaya, Anna's former university professor and personal friend. Shot over a period of 20 years, this exclusive footage creates an incredible story of a woman who consciously gave her life for her convictions.
Elena (2011)
Andrey Zvyagintsev · 1 critic vote
Streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, Klassiki
After suffering from a heart attack, a wealthy elderly Russian man plans to will most of his estate to his estranged daughter, but his titular wife has other plans.
Summertime (2018)
Kirill Serebrennikov · 1 critic vote
Leningrad, one summer in the early eighties. Smuggling LPs by Lou Reed and David Bowie, the underground rock scene is boiling ahead of the Perestroika. Mike and his beautiful wife Natasha meet with young Viktor Tsoi. Together with friends, they will change the destiny of rock’n’roll in the Soviet Union.
Nikita Lavretski (2019)
Nikita Lavretski · 1 critic vote
Streaming on DocAlliance Films
A cycle of mundane violence, lust for art, and existential dread—all chronicled in an unconventional self-titled docu-horror by Nikita Lavretski, who violently edits lo-fi footage of himself from age 0 to age 16.
Captain Volkonogov Escaped (2021)
Natalya Merkulova, Aleksey Chupov · 1 critic vote
Captain Fedor Volkonogov works in law enforcement. He is on the good books of the management, and his colleagues respect him. But one day, his life abruptly changes: he is declared a criminal. The Captain manages to run away before he is arrested. Suddenly he turns into an outcast, whom his former colleagues search across the whole city. At night Volkonogov is visited by a messenger from the other world, who warns him that after death he will go hell and be tormented forever. But he has an opportunity to change his fate and get to paradise if he repents, and at least one person forgives him. The Captain embarks on his way to find forgiveness. But he cannot even fathom what tests are awaiting him on this way.
Fairy Tale (2022)
Alexander Sokurov · 1 critic vote
A civil and artistic statement about those who determined the fate of the planet: Stalin, Churchill, Mussolini, Hitler, according to a Russian newspaper.

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Essential Russian Cinema

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