Russian films about the 90s

A very typical post-Soviet era storyline. A bunch of vagabonds lured an innocent teenage girl to their apartment, offered her a drink, intimidated, then gang raped her. Local cops are incapable to undertake an adequate actions against the scoundrels - prevented by the superior chief of the local police, who is the dad of one of the scumbags. The case is closed. The girl's granddad tired of an endless circumlocution decides to take revenge in his own hands.

Sergei and Simon have to deliver a suitcase full of heroin to Mikhalych or else they will be killed. There is one minor detail: the only problem-solving technique they are familiar with is a shot in the head. There are more than 20 Russian-movie stars in the film, but you will not be able to recognize them immediately since they are all in disguise.

A chronicle of Russia's transition from communism to capitalism.

In 1946, a soldier fathers a child then dies before its birth. Jump to 1952: on a train, the child and his mother meet a handsome soldier who makes a play for her. She accepts. Posing as a married family, the soldier finds them a rooming house where he becomes everyone's favorite through his good looks and generosity. Meanwhile he gives the boy, Sanya, lessons in life: to fight back, to win at all costs. The child's mother, Katya, is head-over-heels in love with Tolyan, the soldier, but the relationship becomes rocky when Tolyan's true plans for the rooming house become clear. It starts them on a treadmill of flight that risks Katya's life, Tolyan's liberty, and Sanya's trust.

The 1990s. Empty shelves in the shops, an economic abyss and criminal dramas that unfold literally at every corner. The young leader of a criminal gang Anton Bykov, with the nickname “Bull”, must make money in whatever way to provide for his family. After a local shootout, Anton ends up in the police station, from where he is released at the intervention of Moscow’s crime lords. In exchange, the latter asks Anton for a small, but dangerous service

Corrupt cops, street gangs, "Bratki" in "Bummers" (BMWs) steal and "Merins" (Mercedeses), angry truck drivers, beautiful women and death are what four friends in a black Bummer who go on a mission from one region of Russia to another are about to face in the wasteland of small-town Russia. A critique of the policies of Boris Yeltsin, it depicted the economic crisis that followed Russia's transition towards a free market economy, and with it, a lost generation, with no job security, who are pushed into a world of crime and rebellion. Despite a modest budget of US$700,000, and a limited cinematic release, it became a national hit in Russia as well its soundtrack, popularized by 'Seryoga's' (Серёга) music video "Чёрный Бумер" ("Black Bummer"). Both the film and its soundtrack have won awards, including the prestigious Golden Aries from the Russian Guild of Film critics.

In 2000 Russians celebrated the advent of a new century and dreamed of a new life. But their painful experiences could not be left behind — in fact, the era hadn’t gone yet, it catches up with the heroes of the film with heavy injuries — war or death turn their lives into a social drama. The Chechen war is followed by the Chechen syndrome, then radical nationalism and escaping from real life. Is there any place for God in this new world? How high is the value of a human life in it? Heroes answer those questions not in words, but in actions dictated by their post-Soviet worldview and values. When Jehovah's Witnesses commit an accidental murder in a search for new religious followers or when the hero rides a motorcycle in memory of his brother, who died in Chechnya — an absurdity connects with reality. Despite the painful social themes, the movie becomes a cruel satire on the insanity of war and violence — grotesque, shock and comic become firmly grounded in the new world.

1998, Nalchik. A Jewish family is in trouble: the youngest son and his bride do not come home, and in the morning, a ransom note arrives. The ransom is so high that the family is forced not only to sell its small business, but also to seek help from its fellow tribesmen.

A shell-shocked Afghanistan war hero named Ivan Skryabin (Mikhail Skryabin) spends his days stoking the fire in a giant coal furnace. When he isn’t tending the flames, he keeps busy with other activities. He works on a historical novel. His adult daughter Sasha (Aida Tumutova) comes to visit. Local kids come to gaze at the flames. Gangsters, including a former Army sergeant (Aleksandr Mosin) and a sniper known as Bison (Yuri Matveyev), drop by to add special kindling to the fire.

Sergei and Kira were considered the most beautiful bohemian couple among cinema lovers of Saint Petersburg in the early 90’s. Their fantastic love affair ended with Kira leaving town, fleeing for new life, new relationship. Sergei has died shortly after. Only after a few years does Kira realize that she never stopped loving Sergei. And that she’s doomed to stay in a neverending dialogue with a dead lover.

Dariya the maid getting a boy to touch her large breast is just one incident that occurs when Yohan and Victor infiltrate two families, forcing young Liza and blind Ekaterina to appear in porn, but they are not so innocent themselves.

A movie about two sisters - thirteen year old Sveta, poor and abandoned by her father, who longs to go off and be a sniper in the army, and spoilt eight-year old Dina, doted on by her gangster father...

Danila goes to his older brother to start a new life in Petersburg. His brother is a gangster and a killer, and he puts Danila into this criminal world asking him to kill someone.

During the bloody war in Chechnya, a British couple and two Russian soldiers are taken hostage by Chechen rebels. Two of the hostages are then released to bring the money for the British woman who is forced to wait for the ransom.

A veteran of the Chechen War is helped by the ghosts of his two fallen comrades to leave the war behind.

Foma, a kolkhoz employee, decides to build a pay toilet in his village. Bit not all the villagers like the idea...

Moscow, the 90s ... A city without a past and without a future. A city that doesn't forgive mistakes. Showing Moscow bohemia, the criminal business: nightlife, easy money, excitement and confusion form the surface of this life. The main characters of the film are businessman Mike and his friend and partner in smuggling Lev, a psychiatrist Mark and his school friend Irina who became the mistress of a nightclub, her two daughters - a crazy Olga working in the same club as a singer, and Masha - the “Moscow Princess” on the threshold of her thirtieth birthday. Love stories smoothly flow into a crime drama.

After Polina, a mother of six, loses her husband, who went to jail for stealing charcoal and was killed when he tried to escape, she stays behind without any support. To be able to survive, Polina and her family start a folk group. But soon she understands that her children deserve a better fate, and she takes the desperate decision to steal a plane and go abroad... Fifteen years later, Polina is released from prison and finds out that fate has scattered her children all over the country: one is in the army, another is a miner in the Donbass, and the oldest, Lyonchik, who used to be in a mental institution, now pretends to be insane. Polina gathers all of her sons to free their older brother from the psychiatric hospital...

Young Evelina has a law degree, but her dream is to travel to the USA and earn a living as a professional DJ. But it’s 1997 and the girl is living in post-Soviet Minsk...

After one of their shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the freezing cold. At first reluctant to shelter the girl, Osamu’s wife agrees to take care of her after learning of the hardships she faces. Although the family is poor, barely making enough money to survive through petty crime, they seem to live happily together until an unforeseen incident reveals hidden secrets, testing the bonds that unite them.

A 13-year-old girl grows up between a boxing ring and the street. Her friends are guys who kill and rob. In the 1990s the whole city hates them, but for Masha they are the best people in the world, who love and protect her. She sings them jazz and dreams of becoming a singer. But one day Masha learns who they actually are and what they have done to her life and family. She matures, leaves the small city for Moscow, trying to break with her past. But one day the past stands directly before her.

August Eighth - story of an ordinary young woman. Ksenia's life is not too happy. Problem at work, problem in personal life, problem with mother, a baby requiring constant cares... Ksenia want to spend a few days in Sochi with new boyfriend, and mom sends her son Artem to the boy's father on Caucasus. But Georgia started war and she must overcome fear, overcome circumstances, she must save her child...

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Billy is mute, but it hasn't kept her from becoming a successful makeup artist. While in Russia, working on a film directed by her sister's boyfriend, Andy, Billy finds herself trapped in the studio one night and is horrified to see a snuff film being made. Billy escapes and, with the help of her sister, Kate, alerts authorities about what she saw. Unfortunately, in doing so, she makes an enemy of the Russian mafia, who funded the snuff film.

1990s. Gangster Kiev. A team of four men is assigned to deliver a girl from Prague, nicknamed "The Stranger." As the sister of a recently arrested criminal called Babai, her testimony could damage some important people.

Since early childhood Peter has been obsessed with the world of puppets, but his greater obsession is with a real girl, Lisa. He crafts his perfect woman out of her. But Lisa isn't a docile marionette. She's a living human being and she rebels against her creator. Based on the critically-acclaimed, brilliant and poignant novel by one of the best contemporary Russian writers, Dina Rubina, "Petrushka Syndrome" is a multidimensional metaphor, where a sense of duality pervades everything. People and dolls, life and art, the Creator and the creation depend on one another. And where does one draw the line between them?

A wealthy businessman tries to change his not so good sounding last name by marrying the heir of aristocratic family.

A Russian soldier who spent ten years in captivity in Afghanistan, returns to his home village and shocks all its inhabitants because of his conversion to Islam. During his absence, his father hanged himself, his brother served a prison term and his former fiancée has become a woman of very low morals. The village is the scene of endless drinking while the local boss is selling off the land for dollars to new-rich Russians. Our hero turns out as the only sober and hard-working member of the community. However, his attachment to his new faith soon provokes the hatred and rejection of everyone else, including his own family.

biography movie

15 August 1990. Viktor Tsoi, the Soviet Union’s most famous rock star, leader of the band Kino, a symbol of freedom and change, dies in an accident on a Latvian highway. The bus driver who was involved in the tragic accident will bring his body back to Leningrad. A party of mourners – Tsoi’s wife and her new boyfriend, his mistress, his producer, his young son and an obsessed photographer – are part of the trip back. This is going to be a long trip, the perfect occasion for an agonizing unravelling of love, jealousy, ambition, and greed.

Katya has a powerful gift: she sees ghosts. When her twin sister disappears, Katya begins a desperate search. Police insist her sister doesn’t exist, that she is a figment of Katya’s twisted imagination. However, during her search Katya discovers that there is a serial killer loose on the streets, and her sister is one of his victims. There is still hope to save her, but in a dark and mysterious city full of secrets, you can’t trust anyone. Not even yourself...

Romantic John the Fool and his friend Foal set out on a series of unpredictable adventures in different magical worlds. The two buddies will have to outsmart an evil tyrant king, catch the firebird, and find John’s true love.

A two days from the life of Pyotr Drozdov, a highly ranked official from Moscow, which he spends with young museum employee Masha.

The story is set at the times of Peter the Great’s reforms. At those times when an emerging empire was wreaking havoc on provincial medievalism. The times were the melting pot of everything – of beliefs and of nations. The history of Russian Asia was made by captive Swedes, outlanders, Bokharan merchants, civil servants and officers, convicts, architects and chroniclers, Chinese smugglers, shamans and escaped dissenters, Orthodox missionaries and warlike steppe-dwellers Jungars.

The drama based on hidden implicit faith in miracle unfolds between the members of the family with an unhappy love story of a desolate teenage girl who tries to withstand this family madness after their devotee grandmother came to their flat from upcountry.

Liuba Vasnetsova lives in a provincial boarding school, dreams of finishing it sooner rather than later and go to St Petersburg to become a stewardess. The future seems bright: after boarding school she receives the keys to a new apartment, with a new life ahead. But on the day of her graduation she learns that she is not an orphan: her father is alive and not dead, as she was told earlier. The girl is shaken and decides to find him.

In 1944, a courageous group of Russian soldiers managed to escape from German captivity in a half-destroyed legendary T-34 tank. Those were the times of unforgettable bravery, fierce fighting, unbreakable love, and legendary miracles.

Three unlucky managers are trying to stop their boss and prevent him from stealing company money.

Young father agrees to fulfill three criminal boss's wishes in order to get money for his son's surgery abroad.

The three not-so-lucky guys are having the most difficult, weirdest and funniest day of their lives. Meanwhile, in Moscow, a gang of Kyrgyz conspirators begins to wield, a sexist gynecologist and a feminist traumatologist come to work, a film producer is cheating on the Motherland, and clay policemen are uncovering their batons. The only question is which of these meetings will become fatal for our friends.

This is a collection of portraits: 23 short stories about the Marij women, a sort of Decameron suspended between magic and realism, in which the Autonomous Republic of the Marij El serves as a backdrop for the collective history of a people of ancient tradition. A journey into a mysterious and unknown part of the world.

Judas, a seasoned thief, finds himself in the market square where Christ is giving a sermon and his apostles are collecting alms. He follows them and steals their money, only to be caught red-handed. Nevertheless, the Teacher forgives him. What is more, He invites the thief to become one of His followers and offers him a position as the group’s treasurer. Shocked by Christ’s unexpected offer, Judas decides to join the apostles, if only to figure out what is going on. He gradually starts to comprehend Christ’s message, but feels that the apostles are blindly following their teacher. Judas argues with them, and tries to defend his right to divine the truth of God. But when he fails to make them understand, he realizes that Christ’s teachings may sink into oblivion without benefiting humanity. His solution is to betray Christ. “By killing a man, have I not saved a God?”

A group of friends suddenly hit jackpot in a state lottery so now they must decide how to spend the money. Unfortunately their wives don't really agree with all the plans.

Most of us say the word "Mama" without thinking. But there are children who have never uttered this word in their lives. The film is about these children, orphans. In these children, no less love than in each of us. And they are waiting. Sometimes too long. But they never cease to believe for a second that one day they will be able to say this simple word. The word "Mama" ...

As the new year celebrations approach, a bunch of characters throughout Russia experience diverse situations that eventually get interconnected towards a joyous finale.

Vova and his best friend Kisa make ends meet by working for the local thug in Vladivostock, Russia until one assignment forces them to question their own morality and puts their friendship to the ultimate test.

Victor Sluzhkin signs on as a teacher of geography in a secondary school in his native Perm (in the Urals) and gets lost in a haze of hard vodka, desperate love for a nymphet-like student and the stress of educating teenagers. Geographer, as the students immediately dub Sluzhkin, attempts to escape from the grueling, dull, stultifying reality of Russia's provincial life in a rafting tour to the Urals. Accompanied by wild, adventure-seeking adolescents, faced with the numerous grim surprises of the nature, Geographer is poised to find himself and his own truth.

Girl photographers are the new rock stars who are changing their views on creativity and social stereotypes. In the film, the heroines-Anya Aristova, Lyubov Kozorezova, Anisia Kuzmina and others-for the first time find themselves in front of the camera lenses, and not behind them, as usual. They will tell you how to create a visual history of the generation, touch on the current topic of self-acceptance and show how they work on their photo shoots.

Strange and scary things start to happen after three young people spend a night on abandoned ship.

Student Artem falls in love with a young beauty from the Black Sea. Having lost his head, he drops everything and goes for his beloved to the Russian South, about which he knows nothing. At sea it turns out that the beautiful Ksyusha is already being looked after by two serious local competitors - a handsome sailor and a daring policeman. It seems that the naive student simply has no chance. Even the help of his new friends seems to only get in the way. But our hero is not going to give up: it means war!