Soviet horror films can be counted on the fingers of one hand. But watching Viy, you risk turning gray, just like the character at the end of the movie. It is based on the story by Nikolai Gogol, in which a seminary student is sent to read night prayers over the body of a beautiful deceased girl. Spoiler alert: The girl turns out to be a witch, and rises from the grave on the very first night.

An engineer creates a time machine and accidentally brings Ivan the Terrible to the USSR. At the same time, a tsar-lookalike and a burglar robbing the apartment next door are accidentally transferred to the cut-throat Middle Ages.

The comedy is based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s little-known play Ivan Vasilyevich and, like many comic films by the legendary Gaidai, topped the box office.  

An “ostern” (Soviet western) about the end of the Russian Civil War. A group of former Red Army soldiers, now Chekists (state security officers), are entrusted with conveying gold confiscated from the bourgeoisie to Moscow, but are robbed first by White Guards and then by bandits...

Nikita Mikhalkov’s directorial debut is considered a movie classic. It was shown at several international festivals.

This movie is based on three works by Mikhail Bulgakov: ‘The Run’, ‘The White Guard’ and ‘The Black Sea’.

The end of the Russian Civil War. Under pressure from the Red Army, soldiers, nobles and intellectuals flee the country. Without money or documents, they are forced to survive in exile. Some decide to return to Soviet Russia, while others, fearing execution in their homeland, remain in exile.

The movie stars Soviet cinema legends Yevgeny Yevstegneyev, Aleksey Batalov and Mikhail Ulyanov.

The central character, known as the Stalker, earns his living by leading people into the Zone, an area formed after the fall of a meteorite where the normal rules of reality do not apply. One day, the Professor and the Writer ask him to take them there. The Stalker agrees, but has no idea what plans these seemingly ordinary people are hatching...

This film parable is based on the sci-fi story Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers, who also worked on the screenplay. It is one of the most popular films of this legendary director.

Fyodor Karamazov has three sons, but they have never been on good terms. And now, one of them is suspected of killing his father, because of a woman and money. But, who is really the murderer?

Another screen adaptation of Dostoevsky from director Piryev – and his last movie, which he did not manage to complete. The main roles were played by cult actors, Kirill Lavrov and Mikhail Ulyanov. They also took on the task of finishing the movie for the late maestro. The success was huge: the very next year, ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ was nominated for an Oscar in the ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ category.

It turns out that St. Petersburg is home to a huge number of lion statues. To find the one with treasure buried underneath, Italian crooks dig under all of them in turn. The blame for everything lies with an elderly Russian émigré who hid treasure under a lion during the revolution.

The film features many special effects, not inferior to Hollywood for the time, including a gas station explosion and a car chase. Without stunt doubles, the actors themselves jumped over a moveable bridge in St. Petersburg and clambered out the window of a multistory building down knotted bed sheets.

This is a screen adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's historical play about the ‘Time of Troubles’ in Russia at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. After the death of Feodor, the last tsar of the Rurik dynasty, a struggle for the throne unfolds between his wife's brother, Boris Godunov and Grigory Otrepyev, who pretends to be the miraculously surviving Tsarevich Dmitry.

Oscar-winning director Sergei Bondarchuk played the lead role in the movie. According to critics, ‘Boris Godunov’ was the best Soviet historical movie ever made. 

On the shores of the Caspian Sea, the Russian Civil War has just ended and Red Army soldier Sukhov is heading home to his beloved wife through the desert on foot. But one day he stumbles upon a man who has been buried up to the neck in sand by bandits. He decides to save him, together with women from the harem of another gangster.

This first “ostern” is famous for some great acting and dialogue—many quotes from the film have become sayings in the Russian language.

Student Shurik is forever getting into scrapes. In the first adventure, he has to confront a bully at a construction site. In the second, revising for his exams on the move, he is so engrossed in his textbook that he doesn’t notice all kinds of dangers around. And in the third, he inadvertently thwarts a gang of crooks...

Shurik was a folk hero in the USSR, the image of the exemplary student and Komsomol member. Today, Gaidai’s humor is still as sharp as ever, and even young Russians can quote from this film.