3 ESSENTIAL Russian post-war movies you can watch FREE

‘The Fate of a Man’, 1959

Front line soldier Andrei Sokolov has survived the war and captivity. But, he has no one to return to: his wife and daughters have been killed in a bombing raid and he learns of his son's death on Victory Day, May 9. Sokolov settles down in a new place, starts working as a driver and, one day, meets an orphan. This encounter gives hope to both of them: Andrei tells the boy that he is his father…

Director and actor Sergei Bondarchuk first recorded Mikhail Sholokhov's story about a front line soldier who lost his entire family for a radio broadcast. After hearing the young actor's performance, the writer sent him a telegram: "Now, I can't imagine another actor who could read it like that: you read it better than I wrote it." Bondarchuk wanted to play the role in a movie. He secured the rights to the film and directed it.

By choosing this story, he took a great risk: movies about prisoners of war weren't typically made. In real life, a person who had been captured by the Nazis faced imprisonment and the status of an enemy of the people. But, the movie's sincere tone resonated with audiences: 40 million people saw it in its first year of release. Renowned Italian director Roberto Rossellini, meanwhile, called ‘The Fate of a Man’ the most powerful movie about the war. 

Watch the movie in our ‘Content hub’ section

‘A Soldier Came Back from the Front’, 1971

This is a drama about another front line soldier, based on a screenplay by Vasily Shukshin. In Spring 1945, the protagonist returns home: he is the first to tell the villagers that the Great Patriotic War has ended. Nikolai becomes the chairman of a collective farm and rebuilds the devastated village. In peacetime, he finds hope for a better future, but dies while crossing a river.

Nikolai Gubenko's debut movie tells the story of the echoes of war – people maimed in battle, who lost loved ones, but who have not lost hope. One of the most poignant scenes in the movie is a village celebration to mark the victory, at which each villager remembers their loved ones who did not return from the battlefield.

Watch the movie in our ‘Content hub’ section

‘Cold Summer of '53…’, 1987

The movie's title is no coincidence: in Spring 1953, a few weeks after Stalin's death, Gulag prisoners were amnestied. The freed criminals then attack a fishing village somewhere hidden in the North. But, they are opposed by political prisoners living in a settlement there: an elderly engineer named Skorobogatov and former officer Basargin, who was captured during the war.

The country, which had recently fought for victory on the front lines and in the rear, was faced with a new scourge – a surge in crime. And ‘Cold Summer…’ was the first movie to address this. And about how, even in the most dire conditions, people retain their dignity and their sense of honor.

Watch the movie in our ‘Content hub’ section