Aelita: Queen of Mars

Aelita: Queen of Mars 1924

5.94

A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.

1924

Storm Over Asia

Storm Over Asia 1928

6.44

In 1918 a young and simple Mongol herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes to the hills after brawling with the trader who cheated him. In 1920 he becomes a Soviet partisan, and helps the partisans fight for the Soviets against the occupying British army. However he is captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama. After the trapper is shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. They find him still alive, so the army restores his health and plans to use him as the head of a puppet regime. The trapper is thus thrust into prominence as he is placed in charge of the puppet government. By the end, however, the "puppet" turns against his masters in an outburst of fury.

1928

Road to Life

Road to Life 1931

6.00

Young hobos are taken to a new camp to become good Soviet citizens. This camp works without any guards, and it works well. But crooks kill one of the young people when they try to damage the newly built railroad to the camp.

1931

The Great Consoler

The Great Consoler 1933

5.00

The Great Consoler is Lev Kuleshov’s most personal film reflecting both the facts of his life and his thoughts about the place of the artist in contemporary reality. It was the only film in the Soviet cinema of those years that raised the question of what role a creative person played in society.

1933

Accidental Meeting

Accidental Meeting 1936

5.80

A supposedly ordinary woman’s personal triumph and tragedy is explored in Igor Savchenko’s 1936 Sluchainaya Vstrecha (Accidental Meeting). Irina – the best shock worker in a provincial children’s factory – develops a relationship with the newly arrived and charming physical culture instructor named Grisha. Soon we learn that Irina is pregnant. Disappointed and angry on hearing her news, Grisha asks her about what will now happen to all their dreams.

1936

The White Eagle

The White Eagle 1928

4.90

The film is based on The Governor, a play by Leonid Andreyev. V.I. Kachalov plays the governor of a small Russian province who tries to treat the people under his authority with kindness and equanimity. But when a local factory goes on strike, the governor buckles under to pressure from the Tzar and orders the wholesale slaughter of the strikers. He pays for this betrayal of his trust with his life -- at the hands of a courageous Bolshevik spy.

1928

The House on Trubnaya

The House on Trubnaya 1928

6.25

Life is short and full of oppression, but that doesn't mean Parasha can't find love and laughter when she leaves her country home to take a job as a maid in the overcrowded, overworked, and underpaid world in the big city.

1928

Without Dowry

Without Dowry 1937

5.80

Ogudolova, unlike her sisters, refuses to obey her mother's wish that she marry a wealthy old man in order to collect a dowry

1937

Dzhulbars

Dzhulbars 1935

1.00

A squad of rebels attacks a peaceful caravan, and the old guide Sho-Murad and his granddaughter Pery find themselves in captivity of the bandits. Border guards and a sheepdog Dzhulbars repulse prisoners and neutralize enemies.

1935

Outskirts

Outskirts 1933

6.27

In a remote Russian village during World War I, colourful and nuanced characters experience divided loyalties: family loyalty vs. personal desire, nationalism vs. transcendent humanism.

1933

By the Bluest of Seas

By the Bluest of Seas 1936

6.30

Two men shipwrecked on an island in the Caspian Sea are saved by members of a collective farm, where they work on its fishing boats and woo the young woman leading the fishermen.

1936

Three Songs About Lenin

Three Songs About Lenin 1934

6.03

This documentary, made up of 3 episodes, is based on three songs sung by anonymous people in Soviet Russia about Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

1934

Marionettes

Marionettes 1934

4.20

The Soviet Union wants more influence in Europe and decides to get more power by giving the nation of Boufferia a new king, an easy to handle drunkard, because they don't have enough power over the current king.

1934

The Four Visits of Samuel Wolfe

The Four Visits of Samuel Wolfe 1934

1

Not being able to implement his invention in his home country, engineer Arrowsmith, the author of the patent for ore flotation, goes to the USSR to work at one of the flotation plants, where he soon learns that a group of Soviet engineers is conducting similar work.

1934

Morozko

Morozko 1924

5.00

Based on the Russian fairy tale Father Frost.

1924

The Golden Lake

The Golden Lake 1935

1

A geological expedition looking for gold in the Russian taiga is beset by a gang of thieves.

1935

Loss of Feeling

Loss of Feeling 1935

4.50

In an unnamed English-speaking capitalist land, a young engineer invents inexhaustible giant robots to replace the fragile human workers on high-volume assembly-lines, and soon finds his invention co-opted by the military-industrial complex.

1935

The Living Corpse

The Living Corpse 1929

5.20

The central character of the play, Fedor Protasov, is tormented by the belief that his wife Liza has never really chosen between him and the more conventional Victor Karenin, a rival for her hand. He wants to kill himself, but doesn't have the nerve. Running away from his life, he first falls in with Gypsies, and into a sexual relationship with a Gypsy singer, Masha.

1929

House of the Dead

House of the Dead 1932

4.00

Soviet film based on Dostoevsky's autobiographical novel of his prison experiences in Tsarist days.

1932