USSR: A Film History

by shoaibnagi | created - 26 Jan 2014 | updated - 26 Jan 2014 | Public

A List of some of my favorite films from the former Soviet Union.

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1. Andrei Rublev (1966)

R | 189 min | Biography, Drama, History

The life, times and afflictions of the fifteenth-century Russian iconographer St. Andrei Rublev.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolay Grinko, Nikolay Sergeev

Votes: 57,003 | Gross: $0.10M

2. Dersu Uzala (1975)

G | 142 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama

The Russian army sends an explorer on an expedition to the snowy Siberian wilderness where he makes friends with a seasoned local hunter.

Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Maksim Munzuk, Yuriy Solomin, Mikhail Bychkov, Vladimir Khrulyov

Votes: 33,466

3. The Ascent (1977)

111 min | Drama, War

Two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the winter cold, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.

Director: Larisa Shepitko | Stars: Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Sergey Yakovlev, Lyudmila Polyakova

Votes: 10,089

4. Stalker (1979)

Not Rated | 162 min | Drama, Sci-Fi

85 Metascore

A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko

Votes: 144,570 | Gross: $0.23M

5. Ballad of a Soldier (1959)

Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, Romance, War

Young Russian soldier Alyosha earns a medal, but asks to visit his mother instead. His journey recounts various kinds of love during wartime.

Director: Grigoriy Chukhray | Stars: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova, Nikolay Kryuchkov

Votes: 11,279

6. Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Not Rated | 66 min | Drama, History, Thriller

97 Metascore

In the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutiny against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.

Director: Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barskiy, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Ivan Bobrov

Votes: 61,402 | Gross: $0.05M

7. Come and See (1985)

Not Rated | 142 min | Drama, Thriller, War

After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.

Director: Elem Klimov | Stars: Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius, Vladas Bagdonas

Votes: 96,953

8. The Cranes Are Flying (1957)

Not Rated | 95 min | Drama, Romance, War

Veronica plans a rendezvous with her lover, Boris, at the bank of river, only for him to be drafted into World War II shortly thereafter.

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov | Stars: Tatyana Samoylova, Aleksey Batalov, Vasiliy Merkurev, Aleksandr Shvorin

Votes: 19,750 | Gross: $0.02M

9. Solaris (1972)

PG | 167 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

93 Metascore

A psychologist is sent to a station orbiting a distant planet in order to discover what has caused the crew to go insane.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetskiy

Votes: 98,157

10. Ivan's Childhood (1962)

Not Rated | 95 min | Drama, War

During WWII, Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev strikes up a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers while working as a scout behind the German lines.

Directors: Andrei Tarkovsky, Eduard Abalov | Stars: Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov, Stepan Krylov

Votes: 39,892

11. Strike (1925)

Not Rated | 82 min | Drama

A group of oppressed factory workers go on strike in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Director: Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Maksim Shtraukh, Mikhail Gomorov, I. Ivanov

Votes: 8,611

12. Mirror (1975)

Not Rated | 107 min | Biography, Drama

82 Metascore

A dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Margarita Terekhova, Filipp Yankovskiy, Ignat Daniltsev, Oleg Yankovskiy

Votes: 52,152 | Gross: $0.18M

13. Mother (1926)

Not Rated | 89 min | Drama

A story about a family torn apart by a worker's strike. At first, the mother wants to protect her family from the troublemakers, but eventually she realizes that her son is right and the workers should strike.

Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin | Stars: Vera Baranovskaya, Nikolay Batalov, Aleksandr Chistyakov, Anna Zemtsova

Votes: 3,063

14. Storm Over Asia (1928)

74 min | Drama, War

After a run-in with the law, a Mongolian man becomes a fugitive and joins the Russian Civil War.

Director: Vsevolod Pudovkin | Stars: I. Inkizhinov, I. Dedintsev, Valéry Inkijinoff, Aleksandr Chistyakov

Votes: 2,310

15. Earth (1930)

Unrated | 75 min | Drama

In the peaceful countryside, Vassily opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.

Director: Aleksandr Dovzhenko | Stars: Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko, Yuliya Solntseva, Yelena Maksimova

Votes: 6,394

16. October (Ten Days that Shook the World) (1927)

95 min | Drama, History

A large-scale view on the events of 1917 in Russia, when the monarchy was overthrown.

Directors: Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Boris Livanov, Nikolay Popov, Vasili Nikandrov, Layaschenko

Votes: 8,438

17. Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1944)

Not Rated | 95 min | Biography, Drama, History

During the early part of his reign, Ivan the Terrible faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people.

Director: Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Nikolay Cherkasov, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, Serafima Birman, Mikhail Nazvanov

Votes: 10,855

18. Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot (1958)

Not Rated | 88 min | Biography, Drama, History

As Ivan the Terrible attempts to consolidate his power by establishing a personal army, his political rivals, the Russian boyars, plot to assassinate their Tsar.

Director: Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Nikolay Cherkasov, Serafima Birman, Pavel Kadochnikov, Mikhail Zharov

Votes: 8,045

19. The Color of Pomegranates (1969)

Not Rated | 79 min | Biography, Drama, History

The life of the Armenian poet Sayat-Nova, from childhood to death, his spiritual journey, artistic endeavors and inner conflicts within the cultural and historical context of Armenia, hailed as revolutionary by Mikhail Vartanov.

Director: Sergei Parajanov | Stars: Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekyan, Vilen Galstyan, Gogi Gegechkori

Votes: 13,515

20. Alexander Nevsky (1938)

Not Rated | 112 min | Action, Biography, Drama

The story of how a great Russian prince led a ragtag army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.

Directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Dmitriy Vasilev | Stars: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Dmitriy Orlov

Votes: 12,253

21. Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

Not Rated | 68 min | Documentary

96 Metascore

A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.

Director: Dziga Vertov | Stars: Mikhail Kaufman, Elizaveta Svilova

Votes: 27,936

22. Konets Sankt-Peterburga (1927)

Not Rated | 85 min | Drama

A peasant comes to St. Petersburg to find work. He unwittingly helps in the arrest of an old friend who is now a labor leader. The unemployed man is arrested and sent to fight in World War I. After three years, he returns to rebel.

Directors: Vsevolod Pudovkin, Mikhail Doller | Stars: Aleksandr Chistyakov, Vera Baranovskaya, Ivan Chuvelyov, Vladimir Obolensky

Votes: 1,857

23. Gorky 1: The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938)

98 min | Biography, Drama

A drama reveals the great writer's inauspicious early years as an orphan raised by conniving relatives.

Director: Mark Donskoy | Stars: Aleksei Lyarsky, Varvara Massalitinova, Mikhail Troyanovskiy, Elizaveta Alekseeva

Votes: 778

24. Nostalghia (1983)

Not Rated | 125 min | Drama

A Russian poet and his interpreter travel to Italy researching the life of an 18th-century composer, and instead meet a ruminative madman who tells the poet how the world may be saved.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Oleg Yankovskiy, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano, Patrizia Terreno

Votes: 30,031 | Gross: $0.01M

25. The Sacrifice (1986)

PG | 149 min | Drama

At the dawn of World War III, a man searches for a way to restore peace to the world and finds he must give something in return.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guðrún Gísladóttir

Votes: 30,924 | Gross: $0.30M

26. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)

97 min | Drama, Romance

A timeless Carpathian story - the young Ivan falls in love with the daughter of his father's killer among the Hutsul people of Ukraine.

Director: Sergei Parajanov | Stars: Ivan Mikolaychuk, Larisa Kadochnikova, Tatyana Bestayeva, Spartak Bagashvili

Votes: 8,442

27. Moy drug Ivan Lapshin (1985)

100 min | Drama

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.

Director: Aleksey German | Stars: Andrei Boltnev, Nina Ruslanova, Andrey Mironov, Aleksey Zharkov

Votes: 2,643



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