Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the...
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...
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...
The film tells about a band of demobilized Red Army men and two civilians who cross a Middle Asian desert. They are forced to do battle with superior forces of Basmachi rebels for the dry draw-well.
The movie is set in the early 30s in a fictional capitalist country. The economic crisis throws three friends - young female workers - out on the street. Their dreams of a prosperous life are shattered, and each begins her own difficult journey.
A film adaptation of the short story of the same name by Guy de Maupassant. The action takes place in the XIX century. Franco-Prussian War of 1870. A group of French bourgeois leaves in a stagecoach from Rouen occupied by Prussian troops. Along with them comes one attractive demimonde lady. The...
About the great Czech satirist Jaroslav Hašek, who was captured by the Russians during the First World War. Not wanting to fight for the interests of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Hašek enters the Red Army and, as a commissar of the international brigade, goes the military way from Samara to...
Collective farmers of the Volga region decide to create the first female fishing team. Her hardworking and neat Varvara Kladova, a quiet and gentle woman suffering from adultery with Stepan's husband, becomes her head. Having overcome the first difficulties, women are ahead of the brigade of men....
This is a film from the series of so-called "defense" films, which presents a hypothetical "scenario" of a future war. The crew of test pilot Sergei Novikov makes a long non-stop flight on an airplane of a new design. Novikov's son, Yurka, a passionate inventor, manages to contact his father using...
The young composer Mikhail Glinka performs his new work at a soiree at earl Vielgorsky's house. However, the public is accustomed to Western music, and reacts coldly to the creation of the composer. This makes him very sad, but soon he decides to go learn the art of music in Italy. After returning...
Lovely telegraph operator Masha Stepanova is a sanitary nurse. During a training alarm, she meets a taxi driver Alexei (Alyosha) Solovyov. He reads verses to a girl and invites her to the theater. But at the appointed time, Alyosha doesn't come, and Mashenka finds him, helps to recover. Young...
The film is based on the play by K. Simonov. It is the story of an American journalist who spends time in Russia and sees socialism in action. Upon his return to the U.S., a prestigious editor asks him to write a book about his experience. He receives a handsome advance for the project and he and...
