Abigail (2019)
Alternate Reality/Steampunk and Magic
Russian film that creates a fascinating alternate reality where Steampunk and magic blend in an almost familiar world
Russian Cinema
This concerns films produced in Russia. During the time that Russia existed as part of the Soviet Union (1917-89), Russian film was fairly much synonymous with Soviet Cinema.
A modest cinematic output was produced during the Soviet Union. Most of the films that concern us here were works that dealt with Space Exploration and the great Communist experiment paving the way to the stars led by scientist and engineers. These are colourful and often have better effects than US counterparts. This period did produce the great Andrei Tarkovsky. There were also some works of fantasy, mostly fairytale adaptations, produced.
The next major wave of Russian genre cinema began in the 2000s with Timur Bekmambetov having considerable international success with Night Watch (2004). By the 2010s, this has resulted in a remarkable and often well made series of Gothic horror films and SF/horror hybrids.
Aelita (1924)
Soviet Science-Fiction/Expedition to Mars
Silent film depiction of a journey to Mars from the early days of the Soviet Union that makes for an interesting curiosity piece. The arrival on Mars contains some imaginative sets and costumes
Amphibian Man (1961)
Soviet Merman Film
The Russian Aquaman. One of the most popular hits from the Soviet Union, a film about a merman who comes onto land to woo a woman. Said to have influenced Guillermo del Toro with The Shape of Water
Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer (2019)
Andrei Tarkovsky Documentary
Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the greatest of all directors, having made films like Solaris and Stalker. This is a documentary about his life and films made up of archival material
Andromeda Nebula (1967)
Soviet SF Film/Space Exploration
A Soviet SF film about the exploration of an alien planet. Though they tended to the dramatically stolid, these Soviet films had amazing budgets their US counterparts of the era never did
Baba Yaga, Terror of the Dark Forest (2020)
Modern Version of a Legendary Witch
A new Russian-made version of the Baba Yaga folktale where the old witch is rewritten as a seductive nanny stealing children and their parents’ memories of them
Battle Beyond the Sun (1963)
Space Expedition/Russian SF Film
One of Francis Ford Coppola’s earliest films. Roger Corman has obtained rights to a Russian-made space expedition film and handed it over to Coppola who added a few extra scenes to repackage for US audiences
The Blackout (2019)
Alien Invasion/Worldwide Powercut
An impressively large-scale SF film about a military sortie into an area of western Russian that is all that is left unaffected after aliens create a worldwide power cut
Branded (2012)
Brand Names Revealed as Parasitic Entities
An ambitious film in its depiction of a near-future Russia and satire on the media. The latter half has the hero undergo a mystical experience and discover that advertising brands are living entities that feed on human need
Coma (2019)
Alternate Reality Inside Shared Dreams
An extraordinary Russian film that takes place in a uniquely designed dreamworld shared by people in comas. This has an imagination and conceptual grasp that rivals Inception
Cosmic Voyage (1936)
Soviet Moon Launch
An early Soviet-made film that does an extraordinary job in depicting the launch of a rocket to The Moon. Fascinating to see in terms of its incredible ambition and the things it gets right
Cosmoball (2020)
Future Sports
A Russian SF film about humans who have been selected to participate in an intergalactic sports tournament. This feels that it has been construed as an anti-Alita: Battle Angel and has some stunning design work
Dark Spell (2021)
Love Spell Horror
Work of Russian horror that heads into pleasingly dark places as a woman enacts a love spell to bring her boyfriend back to her where you just know that something horrible is going to happen
The Darkest Hour (2011)
Alien Invasion
An alien invasion film set in Moscow. This is nothing more than a special effects vehicle about how the culturally self-absorbed twentysomething computer geeks and party girls save the world
Day Watch (2006)
Night Watch Sequel/Supernatural War
Timur Bekmambetov’s sequel to Night Watch comes with a much better budget and the same wild visuals, although is slightly the lesser film
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013)
Unexplained Mystery/Found Footage
The Dyatlov Pass Incident has gained a fascination as an unexplained mystery. Here Renny Harlin makes a Found Footage film that heads for full on conspiracy theory explanations
Faust (2011)
Pact with the Devil
Alexander Sokurov, the director behind Russian Ark, turns to the classic story about a man who sells his soul to The Devil. A very different version than we are used to that takes place in an earthy, cluttered Mediaeval world
First on the Moon (2005)
Soviet Moon Landing Mockumentary
A Russian mockumentary that purports to tell the story of a Soviet expedition to The Moon in 1938. This conducts an exceptional mimicry of the style of the Soviet propaganda film
Forgotten Experiment (2023)
Time Travel
A Russian SF film where a plane is forced to put down on an island where people find themselves caught up in a series of time travel experiments and thrown between different eras
Gogol: The Beginning (2017)
Occult Investigator
The first in a trilogy of Russian dark fantasy films featuring the real-life horror writer Nikolai Gogol as an occult detective investigating a series of supernatural mysteries
Guardians (2017)
Russian Superhero Film
A Russian attempt to create their own equivalent of an Avengers film. The results emerge surprisingly better than you expect and with some standout effects
Hard to Be a God (1989)
Human Observers on a Barbarous Alien World
Adaptation of the Strugatski Brothers’ book about human observers becoming involved in the affairs of a barbarous alien society. Essentially a Star Trek Prime Directive story, the Strugatskis didn’t much like this version
Hard to Be a God (2013)
Human Observers on a Barbarous Alien World
A modern cinematic masterpiece? A plotless three-hour work that rubs our face in the squalour of the Middle Ages while feeling like people crowded into a narrow room all trying to do cryptic things at cross-purpose
Hardcore Henry (2015)
Cyborg/First Person Action Film
An intense kick of pure adrenaline. Imagine a version of The Six Million Dollar Man shot First Person Shooter style by hyper-adrenalised parkour junkies dragging the audience through a series of death-defying stunts
The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (1965)
Soviet Science-Fiction/Death Ray Invention
Soviet film about the invention of a death ray. The first half is a spy thriller, which is fascinating to see from the other side of the fence to James Bond while the second half concerns a great engineering discovery
The Ice Demon (2021)
Possessed Coma Patient
A Russian dark fantasy work that generates quite spooky atmosphere in its story of a missing husband who returns in a coma possessed by an evil force
Inhabited Island (2008)
Russian Science Fiction/Dystopian Planet
Russian adaptation of a classic Soviet-era SF novel from the Srugatski Brothers that plays what was originally a complex social allegory out as an effects extravaganza
Iron Mask (2019)
Historical Fantasy
Sequel to the Russian-made horror film Viy, this is an historical fantasy with a big budget that mounts spectacular effects sequence and provides name stars, even if the results are utterly bizarre
The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1963)
Soviet Cinema/Fantasy World Through the Mirror
A Soviet equivalent of Alice in Wonderland or even more so Alice Through the Looking Glass where a young girl ventures into a fantasy on the other side of the mirror
Letters from a Dead Man (1986)
The Nuclear Holocaust - The Russian Perspective
Amid, the 1980s body of nuclear war films, all others are English-language made but this is one made by the Russians. The results are incredibly bleak but also have a haunting poetry
The Mermaid: Lake of the Dead (2018)
Russian Dark Fantasy/Avenging Water Spirit
This is a Russian dark fantasy that has been misleadingly titled as a mermaid film in English release. It in fact concerns an avenging rusalka water spirit who haunts a small lake
Moon Rainbow (1983)
Soviet SF/Mysterious Alien Zone
Obscure work of Soviet era SF. Clearly influenced by Stalker, this concerns an investigation into a mysterious alien zone that has left astronauts with psychic powers. Most of the film drowns in endless discussion and an almost complete lack of drama
Moscow-Cassiopeia (1973)
Soviet Science-Fiction/Space Expedition
Space exploration films from the Soviet Union about teenagers selected to go on a decades long journey to the stars, this has the same stolid drama of the other Soviet SF films but is better made than most of the others
Night Watch (2004)
Supernatural War
An amazing breakout hit from Russia, a film that is busy to the point of overcrowding with ideas and its’ director’s visual excess but delivers the goods in ways that make your jaw drop
The Ninth (2019)
Occult Murders in 19th Century St Petersburg
Visually stunning Russian film with a clairvoyant and a police inspector teaming up to solve a series of occult murders in 19th Century St Petersburg
Per Aspera Ad Astra (1981)
Soviet Science-Fiction/Female Alien Visitor
Soviet-made science-fiction film about a mysterious female alien visitor. The set-up intrigues for a time but the directorial delivery is dull and prosaic, while the mystery about who the alien woman is sidetracked by a long-winded interplanetary adventure in the second half
Project Gemini (2022)
Space Expedition Gets Lost
A Russian SF film about an expedition through a wormhole that then gets lost, this bites off an ambitious conceptual reach only for it to fall apart in a shaggy dog ending
The Red Tent (1969)
Ill-Fated Expedition to the North Pole/Ghosts of the Dead
On the face of it, this is not the most likely of films to be included – a depiction of the ill-fated true-life expedition to cross the North Pole in a dirigible in 1928 – but is for a wraparound wherein the survivor is judged by a tribunal of ghosts. A beautifully made and epical film
Resurrected (2023)
Resurrection Process
This has a fascinating premise where the Catholic Church develops a resurrection process, before one priest starts to see a darker conspiracy beneath. Shot in the Screenlife process where the film screen becomes a computer screen
Row 19 (2021)
Haunted Plane Flight
Spooky Russian film about a haunted plane flight, this recalls something of The Twilight Zone’s famous Nightmare at 20,000 Feet episode
Russian Ark (2002)
Walk Through Russian History/Temporal Disjunctions
Extraordinarily ambitious film all shot in a single take at the former St Petersburg Winter Palace where the camera drifts dream-like from room to room and in and out of periods of Russian history. More n illustrated art and history program than a dramatic film but beautiful to watch.
Side Effect (2020)
Witch’s Spell
Another work of Russian dark fantasy where a man asks a witch for a spell to help his wife, only to get very different results than intended
Solaris (1972)
Enigmatic Alien Planet/Ghosts of Memory
Called the Russian 2001. Andrei Tarkovsky makes one of the great SF films, a haunting ghost story set on a space station as an alien planet below drives the crew mad with recreated doppelgangers of their loved ones
Sputnik (2020)
Cosmonaut Returns Infected by a Parasitic Alien Organism
Strong intelligent SF film where a cosmonaut returns from a space mission with an alien parasite attached. On one level, not too different to a host of Alien copies but the difference is all in the approach
Stalker (1979)
Alien Affected Zone
One of the greatest of all SF films from Andrei Tarkovsky about a mysterious zone filled with enigmatic alien phenomena at the centre of which exists a room that can grant one’s heart’s desire
Storm Planet (1962)
Soviet SF Film/Expedition to Venus
Modestly effective Soviet SF film about an expedition to Venus where the cosmonauts encounter a wild and colourful planet of plants and prehistoric wildlife
The Superdeep (2020)
Monster in the Depths
Standout Russian SF/horror that undeniably captures something of The Thing with scientists encountering a monster in the depths of a deep drilling project
Target (2011)
Russian Science Fiction Film/Rejuvenation Process
Russian SF film about a rejuvenation process where an interesting set-up tapers off into telling the stories of the newborns, not all of which are developed enough despite the lengthy time the film takes telling them
13 Tzameti (2005)
Russian Roulette Gambling
Starkly effective Georgian-made film about a young man in need of money being drawn into an underground gambling ring that bets on games of Russian Roulette
The Ugly Duckling (2010)
Claymation/Fairytale
Charming Claymation animated adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale from Russia that manages to be a mordant satire on Communism into the bargain
Viy (1967)
Soviet Horror Film/Monk Fights the Forces of Hell
The only horror film ever made in Communist Russia. Adaptation of a classic story about a monk sequestered with the body of a woman for three nights, the film creates an undeniable atmosphere and mounts to a wildly fantastical climax where he must face all the minions of Hell
Viy (2014)
Russian Gothic
Russian-made adaptation of a classic horror story that takes place as an exquisitely stylised 19th Century Gothic fantasy world but is a head-scratchingly incoherent mishmash on a plotting level
Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)
Expedition to Venus/Russian SF Film
Another Roger Corman film made up out of footage recycled from Russian SF films and pseudnonymously directed by a young Peter Bogdanovich in a rather silly plot about astronauts encountering dinosaur-worshipping women on Venus
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)
Expedition to Venus/Russian SF Film
Roger Corman had a good deal of success in the 1960s by buying up footage from Soviet SF films, shooting English language inserts and reissuing them. Bar a handful of scenes with some Hollywood actors, this is almost the whole of the Russian film Storm Planet
The Widow (2020)
Woods Haunted by a Witch
Russian dark fantasy and horror has emerged as one of the most exciting genres in recent years. This incredibly spooky little film is a Russian equivalent of The Blair Witch Project