Movies about Soviet reality and everyday life
Movies (and a few documentaries) that most authentically portray how ordinary people lived in the Soviet Union and under Communism, how it looked like and how it felt like. No fantasy, no varnish, no propaganda.
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- CreatorCraig MazinStarsJessie BuckleyJared HarrisStellan SkarsgårdIn April 1986, the city of Chernobyl in the Soviet Union suffers one of the worst nuclear disasters in the history of mankind. Consequently, many heroes put their lives on the line in the following days, weeks and months.
- DirectorPavel LunginStarsPyotr MamonovPyotr ZaychenkoVladimir KashpurA comedic love/hate relationship develops between a dour taxi driver and a hapless aspiring musician after the latter stiffs his cab fare.
- DirectorKaren ShakhnazarovStarsFyodor DunayevskyAnastasiya NemolyaevaOleg BasilashviliThe story of a teenager boy in times of the comunism fall in the Soviet Union.
- DirectorAleksey GermanStarsAndrei BoltnevNina RuslanovaAndrey MironovRussian 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.
- DirectorMarlen KhutsievStarsEvgeniya UralovaAleksandr BelyavskiyYuriy VizborA thirty-year-old typist reconsiders her values and priorities regarding her friends, fiancé, and life in general.
- DirectorGeorgiy DaneliyaStarsOleg BasilashviliNatalya GundarevaMarina NeyolovaMiddle-aged university professor desperately tries to strike a balance in his life between his wife and his mistress, slowly getting bogged down in his own lies.
- DirectorSergey LoznitsaStarsViktor NemetsVladimir GolovinAleksey VertkovA few days in the life of truck driver Georgi, which seems to be a never-ending nightmare, a spiral of violence and abuses of power.
- DirectorAndrei TarkovskyStarsMargarita TerekhovaFilipp YankovskiyIgnat DaniltsevA 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.
- DirectorLarisa ShepitkoStarsLeonid DyachkovYuriy VizborAlla DemidovaBecause of the failed marriage neurosurgeon Pyotr going through an identity crisis by trying to solve accepting a job in far Siberia .
- DirectorGleb PanfilovStarsMikhail UlyanovInna ChurikovaEvgeniy VesnikA playwright faces writer's block.
- DirectorOtar IosselianiStarsRamaz GiorgobianiGogi KharabadzeMarina KartsivadzeA young idealist takes a job at a local state run winery only to discover and become disillusioned by the corruption of the Soviet State.
- DirectorPeeter SimmStarsArvo KukumägiTõnu KarkKalju KomissarovIn post-World War II Estonia, Mait Kukemeri, an activist of the Young Communist League arrives to the Metsa collective farm in the back of a travelling cinema truck. As a commissary of the spring sowing, he has orders to usher all the people to the field, even if the water is high enough to soak your boots and the machines sink in the mud. Harald Tuvikene, the head of the farm, keeps dragging his feet, trying to pitch his peasant wisdom against the senseless demands of the central power. For the first time in his life, Kukemeri faces a real problem - does he do what's right or does he follow the party's inept commands in order to further his own career? He starts ignoring the party assignments and gets involved with the local village life and the local pioneer activist, a young woman named Liina. Nobody wants to sow before the time is right and Kukemeri gets tangled in the web of white lies to his bosses. But no one can keep anything secret from the Communist party for long.
- DirectorKira MuratovaStarsSergei PopovOlga AntonovaGalina ZakhurdaevaIn the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it's termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher has got it, and it's not much fun.
- DirectorRaimundas BanionisStarsAugustas SavialisGabija JaraminaiteJurate OnaityteRebellious Lithuanian teenagers in early 1970s are immensely influenced by Western culture, especially Radio Luxembourg, the Rolling Stones and Woodstock. After taking part in a hippie camp at the seaside, problems start to ensue.
- DirectorKaren ShakhnazarovStarsAleksandr LyapinLidiya MilyuzinaEgor BaranovskiyThe film's story takes place in Moscow in the 1970s. Its plot unfolds around the love triangle between two young men and a girl who study at the same university. They argue, make up, and face their first disappointments and victories. While busy with personal lives and loves, they miss foreseeing that the country in which they were born and live will soon disappear from the map.
- DirectorLarisa ShepitkoStarsMayya BulgakovaSergey NikonenkoZhanna BolotovaA fascinating and human portrayal of a once-famous fighter pilot and loyal Stalinist named Nadezhda Petrovna. Now a 41-year-old provincial schoolmistress, she has so internalized the military ideas of service and obedience that she cannot adjust to life in peacetime.
- DirectorSergey SolovyovStarsNatan EidelmanAnatoly SlivnikovGerman ShorrASSA is set in Crimea during the winter in the mid eighties. A young musician (Bananan) falls for mobster's (Krymov) young mistress (Alika). The parallel story line involves an 18th century assassination plot.
- DirectorJuris PodnieksPortrayal of rebellious teenagers growing up under Communist rule in Latvia.
- DirectorIvars SeleckisThe Crossroad Street is a small street in the outskirts of Latvia's capital Riga, and its various inhabitants with their destinies, everyday routines and neighborly relations form the micro-model of society during the Awakening.
- DirectorAgnieszka HollandStarsJames NortonVanessa KirbyPeter SarsgaardA Welsh journalist breaks the news in the western media of the famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s.
- DirectorSergey LoznitsaIn August 1991 a failed coup d'état attempt (known as Putsch) led by a group of hard-core communists in Moscow, ended the 70-year-long rule of the Soviets. The USSR collapsed soon after, and the tricolour of the sovereign Russian Federation flew over Kremlin. As president Gorbachev was detained by the coup leaders, state-run TV and radio channels, usurped by the putschists, broadcast Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" instead of news bulletins, and crowds of protestors gathered around Moscow's White House, preparing to defend the stronghold of democratic opposition led by Boris Yeltsin, in the city of Leningrad thousands of confused, scared, excited and desperate people poured into the streets to become a part of the event, which was supposed to change their destiny. A quarter of a century later, Sergei Loznitsa revisits the dramatic moments of August 1991 and casts an eye on the event which was hailed worldwide as the birth of "Russian democracy". What really happened in Russia in August 1991? What was the driving force behind the crowds on the Palace Square in Leningrad? What exactly are we witnessing: the collapse or the regime or its' creative re-branding? Who are these people looking at the camera: victors or victims?
- DirectorSergey LoznitsaThe city of Leningrad and the blockade during the Second World War. No words. No music. Only sounds and black and white images of a dying city.
- DirectorPawel PawlikowskiStarsJoanna KuligTomasz KotBorys SzycIn the 1950s, a music director falls in love with a singer and tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.