War and Peace 1968

A seven-hour epic adaptation of the novel by Leo Tolstoy. The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

War and Peace, Part II: Natasha Rostova 1966

In the end of 1809, Natasha attends her first ball. Andrei falls in love with her and intends to marry her, but her father demands they wait. The prince travels abroad, and Natasha desperately longs for him. But she then meets Anatol Kuragin and forgets of Andrei. At the last minute, she regrets and abandons her plans to elope with Anatol. Bolkonsky hears of this and declares their betrothal is over. Pierre, trying to calm her down, suddenly announces he loves her.

War and Peace, Part I: Andrei Bolkonsky 1966

The first film of a four-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 novel. In St. Petersburg of 1805, Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a rich nobleman, is introduced to high society. His friend, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, joins the Imperial Russian Army as aide-de-camp of General Mikhail Kutuzov in the War of the Third Coalition against Napoleon.

The Hockey Players 1965

The Russian Forest 1964

Based on the novel of the same name by Leonid Leonov. Young Polya comes to Moscow: she wants to find her father, Professor Vikhrov, and try to understand why her mother broke up with him. Vikhrov is a prominent scientist who has defended the forest from barbaric destruction all his life. The war begins. Professor Vikhrov continues to lecture, proving to students the need to protect the forest. Polya is trying to find out the reasons for the long-standing feud between her father and academician Gratsianskiy. Now, when Vikhrov is already not young and lonely, the professor mentally returns to the past...

Chudotvornaya 1960

Rodka Gulyaev is a pupil of the Gumniskii rural secondary school. He on the bank of the river digs out the darkened old icon, and his grandmother Avdotya, an overbearing and cunning old woman, dissolves a rumor that the icon is miraculous, and her granddaughter is a saint.

Lullaby 1959

Pilot Losev, who lost his family during the war, learns that his daughter Aurika was saved during the bombing, and sets off in search of her. The former pilot will survive many fates and stories before a familiar chorus of a lullaby helps him to recognize his daughter in a random fellow traveler.

The Idiot 1958

The film is based on the first part of the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from Switzerland, where he was treated in a psychiatric clinic. On the train, on the way to St. Petersburg, the prince meets Parfyon Rogozhin, who tells him of his passionate love for Nastasya Filippovna, the former containment woman of the millionaire Totsky. In St. Petersburg, the prince finds himself in the house of his distant relative – Lizaveta Yepanchina (General's wife), meets her husband, their daughters, as well as the Secretary of General – Ganya Ivolgin. The portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, accidentally seen on the general’s table, makes a great impression on the prince...

The Great Glinka 1946

About the life of the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka.

Tom Soyer 1936

About a merry, smart boy Tom Soyer, that, testing, as him it seemed to, all facilities, to be good, decided nevertheless to go away from home and become a marine robber.

Torn Boots 1933

Working with children led Barskaya to create superb direct sound and an inspired style of shooting. Don’t look for conventional cinematic syntax here. The film is chaotic in the way that Soviet films still knew how to be, and Langlois couldn’t help but be seduced by its rebellious spirit, its anarchy and love of children, comparable to Vigo’s Zero de conduite. As well as being a film made with and for children, it offers a complex take on Western society. Pre-Nazi Germany is not named as such but is carefully reconstructed, possibly under advice from Karl Radek, and children offer a playful reflection of class struggle – doubly excluded, as proletarians and as minors. “They play in the same way that they live”, one intertitle says. The interaction between their comical games and the yet more ludicrous ones played by adults is developed on several levels.