Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov • 2002 • Russia

Heralded as a new Russian masterpiece on its release in 2002, Aleksandr Sokurov’s revolutionary period drama unfolds in a single unbroken take, transporting the viewer through three centuries of history as contained within St Petersburg’s famous Herm...

Directed by Aleksandr Abaturov • 2022 • Russia

Alexander Abaturov’s climate crisis documentary is a dreamlike but gripping account of a community battling forces beyond their control. In the Sakha Republic in northeastern Siberia, heatwaves have led to ever more devastating wildfires that ravage...

Directed by Andrei Tarkosvky • 1983 • Italy/USSR/Russia

The first film that Andrei Tarkovsky made outside of the Soviet Union, Nostalghia is one of the great director’s most wistful and intimate features. Co-written with Antonioni collaborator Tonino Guerra, the story explores the sense of dislo...

Directed by Konstantin Lopushansky • 1986 • USSR/Russia

Arriving just months after the Chernobyl disaster, Konstantin Lopushansky’s post-apocalyptic prophecy is one of the final masterpieces of Soviet cinema. In a world devastated by nuclear war, a small community of survivors ekes out a life un...

Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev • 2014 • Russia

Andrei Zvyagintsev’s modern masterpiece recasts the Biblical parable of Job as an epic, witheringly comic treatise on life in Putin’s Russia. On the bleakly beautiful Arctic coast, mechanic Kolya (Aleksei Serebryakov) lives with his withdrawn second...

Directed by Marlen Khutsiev • 1965 • USSR/Russia

Three lifelong friends see their aspirations juxtaposed against everyday life in 1960s Moscow, reflecting on their possible futures and their place in society. At the heart of the film is Sergei, returning from military service and grappling with ...

Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov • 1988 • USSR/Turkmenistan

In the dying days of the Soviet experiment, a young doctor finds himself posted to a remote Turkmen town. Attempting to research the relationship between religious faith and medicine, he finds his efforts confounded by a series of mysterio...

Directed by Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmuskallio • 2000 • Finland

A groundbreaking work of Indigenous cinema, Seven Songs of the Tundra is Anastasia Lapsui’s greatest tribute to her native Nenets culture. A nomadic people native to Siberia, the Nenets found their traditional way of life disr...

Directed by Vasili Pichul • 1988 • USSR/Russia

A scandal upon release, this hugely influential eighties cult film captures the anguished cynicism of the “last Soviet generation”. Vera (the name means “faith” in Russian, hence the pun of the title) is a teenager in a provincial port town whose da...

Directed by Nina Guseva • 2021 • Russia

The summer of 2019 saw Moscow gripped by protests following attempts to block opposition candidates from standing in local elections. Nearly 3,000 demonstrators were arrested. Nina Guseva’s immersive, gut-wrenching documentary follows one defendant, Konsta...

Directed by Sybilla Tuxen • 2023 • Russia/Denmark

Danish documentarian Sybilla Tuxen’s intimate and expansive portrait of youth on the edge in modern Russia asks urgent questions about political agency and personal freedom. Following three young women – Alika, Alyona, and Katya – as they attempt...

Directed by Ilya Povolotsky • 2023 • Russia

An unnamed father and daughter traverse the empty roads of provincial Russia in a battered old van, eking out a living selling pirated DVDs at the impromptu screenings they mount with an onboard mobile cinema. Ilya Povolotsky’s compellingly strange deb...

Directed by Aleksei German • 1998 • Russia

Moscow, February 1953. General Yuri Klensky is a prominent brain surgeon, living a life of luxury and prestige – until he is accused of being part of a plot to kill Stalin. The story of his arrest, torture, and eventual “freedom” upon Stalin’s own death...

Directed by Tatyana Lioznova • 1968 • USSR/Russia

Adapted from a novel by Mikhail Borgashevsky, this deceptively simple tale of the accidental meeting of rustic housewife Nurya and Sasha, a Moscow taxi driver, immediately achieved cult status on release. Tatyana Lioznova, who would go on to dire...

Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov • 2016 • Russia

Released a year before the politically-motivated house arrest that ultimately saw him leave Russia for good, Kirill Serebrennikov’s fierce drama of spiritual fervour now seems grimly prescient. Venya (Pyotr Skvortstov) seems like a typical maladju...

Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky • 1966 • USSR/Russia

Collective farmer Asya is in love with the father of her unborn child. However, he does not reciprocate, leaving her forced to choose between a loveless marriage to another suitor and single motherhood. Konchalovsky’s sparsely beautiful tale o...

Directed by Pavel Chukhrai • 1997 • Russia

Left widowed after the Second World War, Katya desperately tries to keep her son Sanya safe from harm. When charismatic officer Tolyan enters her life, she succumbs to his charms, despite her son’s misgivings. But can Tolyan be trusted? This parable of ...

Directed by the Vasilyev Brothers • 1934 • USSR/Russia

This biopic of Vasily Chapaev, peasant turned mythical military hero, is perhaps the most canonical film of state-sponsored Socialist Realism. Charting Chapaev’s campaign in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, frenetic action is juxta...

Directed by Aleksei German • 1976 • USSR/Russia

One of the few “cinéma-vérité” gems centred around Second World War, Aleksei German’s sophomore film is a melancholic yet deft investigation into the true wages of war. Disillusioned correspondent Lopatin is granted twenty days of leave from the St...

Directed by Dinara Asanova • 1983 • USSR/Russia

A former athlete leads a sports summer camp for troubled teens in this drama from Dinara Asanova. Famed for her use of improvisation, Asanova uses this chronicle of a summer to investigate the paradoxical vulnerability of these supposedly “tough” o...

Directed by Lev Kuleshov • 1924 • USSR/Russia

John West, a YMCA president from Ohio, goes to Russia on official business, accompanied by his cowboy bodyguard, Jeddie. Nothing goes right from the start: Mr West’s suitcase goes missing, he and Jeddie get separated, and the hapless protagonist is k...

Directed by Igor Maslennikov • 1979 • USSR/Russia

A sparkling Soviet rendering of the beginnings of the unlikely partnership between super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes and decent-minded Doctor Watson. When John Watson rents a room at 221b Baker Street, he quickly becomes convinced that there is someth...

Directed by Yakov Protazanov • 1924 • USSR/Russia

“Anta Odeli Uta”. This cryptic wireless message, broadcast around the world, is the spark for interplanetary romance and revolution in Yakov Protazanov’s sci-fi classic. Tormented by the notion that the signal is coming from Mars, engineer Los em...

Directed by Sergei Eisenstein • 1926 • USSR/Russia

A founding masterpiece of silent cinema, studied the world over for its radical montage techniques and still shocking today, Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin was originally conceived as part of a cycle of films commemorating the revolutio...