20 best movies like The Tolstoy Defence (2018)

A story of a young girl Claudia who works as a security guard on a slowly dying metal plant.

A French policeman, a wine grower from Georgia, a couple of young actors in London, an Italian priest. Four stories of change in people through the prism of a drink that accompanies human passions for 8000 years.

This movie is about soccer hooligans, the most aggressive and violent soccer aficionados. They are an exclusive group, the elite of all soccer fans. Whoever they may be in their everyday lives—college students, bankers, musicians, or car mechanics—they are a “firm.” It’s easy to get into a firm, but once you’re in, it’s for life. There’s no going back. The movie is based on actual events

Three old fiends decide to take vacation from the everyday life and join the archeological expedition.

The film guides us behind the scenes of the theatre and film productions. The film and theatre actors live the lives of the made up characters on stage and on camera, while also living to the fullest off-stage. Some episodes from their real lives are funny, some are scary, but all of them are exciting to witness.

The popular rapper comes on tour in St. Petersburg. His fans adore and wait, he is at the peak of fame, he is confident in himself. Together with the star, his manager, musicians and a girl come. Suddenly an attempt is made on a musician. He miraculously manages to escape death, but his manager decides to hire a security guard. It turns out that the guard is ... a girl. She is a professional in her field, but in the brutal world of rap, a woman has a difficult time.

A successful top manager of an investment company, Ivanov, is fleeing the harassment of security officials from Moscow to Kiev, a city without rules, and is trying to find a place for himself there. He discovers the opportunity for easy money, as everything around can be stolen. In Kiev, Ivanov, with his friend and business partner Spitsin, goes to night clubs, visits the gallery of modern art and prepares a deal to buy shipwrecks from a local scam. "Ivanov", shot in Kiev before the Maidan, is based on real events, it is a strange and bewitching tragicomedy about corruption, infidelity and loneliness.

In a snowed-under village lives the shepherd Ivan Sergeyevich. Every morning he cleans up the manure and feeds the cows. Day after day goes by in this way. One winter morning a stranger arrives in the village in an expensive car and offers Ivan Sergeyevich good work in the city. Ivan Sergeyevich agrees with pleasure. The stranger takes Ivan Sergeyevich away from the village to the city...

Ivan Lashin, a young man who lives with his mother in the country and works at home, met director Vitaly Suslin. The young man told the director about his life, they wrote a script together and thus the feature film "Head. Two Ears" was born, in which Ivan played himself as the main character. Russia’s most important festival Kinotavr declared it the best script and the film also received the award of the Russian Film Critics Guild. Now, a few years later, Vitaly and Ivan have made a new film which talks about Ivan’s life after festivals: has he changed, what is he dreaming about?

Drama set in 1942, during one of the most important battles of World War II, which stopped the progress of Nazi forces and turned the tide of war in favor of the Allies. The Soviet army mounts a counter-attack on the Nazi forces that occupy half of Stalingrad on the other side of the Volga, but the operation to cross the river is unsuccessful. A few soldiers who managed to get to the other side take refuge in a house on the bank of Volga. Here they find a girl who didn’t escape when the Germans came. While the whole might of the German army descends onto them, the heroes of Stalingrad experience love, loss, joy and the sense of ultimate freedom that can only be felt by those about to die. They defend the house at all costs while the Red Army prepares for another attack.

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.

The modern parable of two brothers, overcoming a complex spiritual path towards each other, unfolds in the center of modern Moscow. Valera Romeev is a young artist who is forced to work as a street portrait painter. Having spent a serene childhood in a mining town in Eastern Ukraine, Valera struggles to find herself in a cruel megalopolis. Hoping for support, Romeev is looking for his elder brother Vadim, a successful businessman who left his father’s house for a long time and lost contact with his family. Strong, independent Vadim, refuses his younger brother to help. Cornered by circumstances, spurred on by jealousy and annoyance, Valery takes a desperate step ...

When a factory is bound to close, a group of workers decides to take action against the owner.

A story of a first love and a beautiful age of seventeen...

Igor and Alexandra are 30 -years old lovers.She is a theater production designer.He is an actor.She works hard,he drinks.They cannot leave and cannot get on.This story is about eternal problem of choice and talent to listen to ones heart .About a dangerous illusion of the youth that there is a lot of time to make mistakes and that is too early to make decision,to get married,to give birth to a child.The main characters have to realize that there is no time and there is no rough copy we have to live present moment because tomorrow may never come.

Devoted to the last days of Soviet writer, poet, and Gulag survivor Varlam Shalamov, this film follows the efforts of two of Shalamov’s most devoted admirers to preserve the author’s legacy. Having lost his sight and hearing and living in a retirement home, he carried on doing the only thing that mattered to him — writing — until his final breath. This film is a testament to the value of writings that tell the unpalatable truths of the 20th century. To evoke the gritty texture of the Soviet world, Sententia is shot on 16mm black and white film.

By miracle he avoided death and returns to the house where he was born. In the house now lives the love of his life. But the hope for happiness turns sour with a terrible discovery: his beloved is the daughter of his enemy.

A story about an awesome devil named German and his visit to Moscow.

The fates of two people - adult and teenager - are crossing paths when both of them are on a crossroads of their lives.

She is a healer. A hermit. A Fool-in-God. She is a little over forty years old. She doesn’t disdain alcohol. She can be ridiculous, humiliated, offended. She has long been indifferent about herself. Everybody avoids her and is afraid of her, but secretly at night they all hurry to her home. After all, only she can get rid of their illnesses. For her, this is a damnation, and each time she swears that she won’t help people any more, but each time she is unable to refuse them. She knows that her gift will ruin her some time, but she continues to be the only chance of salvation for people.

A French marquis wanders through a vast labyrinth of corridors, theaters and ballrooms at a reception for a Persian ambassador.

In a small town everything is visible. However much you try to hide something, some disturbing signals will reach the family sooner or later. And then you have to make a choice: start a new life in the same place with your new “half” or confess to the old half and return to the usual flow of life. The film’s heroes stand before such a choice.

A well-known civil servant from the Mayor's Office in a provincial Russian town receives a note: You'll soon die. He takes no notice, and gets ready for his normal Sunday – family problems, his personal life, work, other matters… But this Sunday turns out very far from normal. From the very start things come crashing down, smiting everything in its path, including all plans, external composure, and even his own life.

Five school friends seek adventure on Halloween night in an abandoned, haunted mine, only to find to their horror that the ghostly rumors may be true as they fight for survival.

The action takes place shortly after the end of the Second World War in the Siberian hinterland, among Russians and Germans with damaged personal stories and a strange transformation: the victors seem to be crawling into the skins of the defeated, and vice versa. Ignat, is the embodiment of the larger-than-life image of the Soviet victorious warrior who, in fact, proves to be shell-shocked, sick and broken, although not completely destroyed. Trains become fetish for the heroes of the film, and speed becomes a mania; they virtually become one with their steam engines, while the machines take on human names. The heroes set up an almost fatal race in the Siberian forest, risking their own lives and those of others.

Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. The region is under German occupation. A man is wrongly accused of collaboration. Desperate to save his dignity, he faces an impossible moral choice.

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The sea, August, interesting and simple people. They tan, swim, play volleyball, basketball, drink, dance and then find someone to spend the night with. Many grew out of their student phase and can afford a more comfortable holiday but when July comes they grab a tent, jump into their cars and come here. Here, nobody talks about work and the size of your wallet means nothing.

A story about a few men and the autumn of their lives...

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

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

USSR, Late November, 1941. Based on the account by reporter Vasiliy Koroteev that appeared in the Red Army's newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, shortly after the battle, this is the story of Panifilov's Twenty-Eight, a group of twenty-eight soldiers of the Red Army's 316th Rifle Division, under the command of General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of fifty-four Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days. Though armed only with standard issue Mosin-Nagant infantry rifles and DP and PM-M1910 machine guns, all useless against tanks, and with wholly inadequate RPG-40 anti-tank grenades and PTRD-41 anti-tank rifles, they fight tirelessly and defiantly, with uncommon bravery and unwavering dedication, to protect Moscow and their Motherland.

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In a Crimean filtration camp, after the evacuation of the White Army, an unnamed captain is haunted by memories of a brief romance as he tries to understand how the Russian Empire fell apart and who is to blame.

A famous movies director tries to understand why his life started to change so drastically.

The main character of the movie is a young man from downtown Moscow. He got everything from his father - his money, car, university. Sasha wants to live his life differently, but doesn't know how... He dreams of being Tsoi or van Gogh. One day Sasha meets Masha, an extraordinary and complex woman. Her mother, an aged actress, is an alcoholic and trying to take her own life. Sasha decides to help the girl

Nine year-old Andrey lives on the outskirts of a small village near the sea. His mother wants to put him into an orphanage. Andrey is scared by the perspective and understands that his life will drastically change. One stormy day he finds a dog on the beach and decides that it is the mystical beast known as Chupacabra, a goat vampire, which will make a miracle. Debut film developed at the Ikusmira Berriak residencies programme.

One day, Tamara went out to throw out the garbage and met Pasha at the entrance with a bottle of wine and a desire to talk. After a visit, the man gets into the apartment of a new acquaintance, and she tells him how much she loves her husband Lenechka, who took her "rejected" from the village, planted her at home for a sewing machine and called "gupeshka" - in honor of an aquarium fish, submissive , silent, unwittingly devoted to the owner.

Set in a seaside resort in the Caucasus, the story centers on n'er do well, Laevsky and his illicit relationship with his mistress Nadya. Laevsky has convinced Nadya to leave her husband for him, but now wants to abandon her.

Alabama; 1969: The death of a clan's estranged wife and mother brings together two very different families. The scars of the past hide differences that will either tear them apart or expose truths that could lead to unexpected collisions.

When a feared judge of the French court, Xavier Racine, encounters a French-Danish juror, Ditte Lorensen-Coteret, at a murder trial, their shared past is slowly uncovered.

Igor, a Russian oligarch gets into a heated argument with Eva, his estranged daughter whilst traveling on his private jet. Igor orders the plane to land. As the plane touches down Eva disappears into the Goan jungle. Thus begins Igor's desperate search for his only daughter. A search that will bring him and Eva into contact with various characters who in turn are trying to find their own paths through life. Makar, a guy from Novosibirsk, who is desperately searching for enlightenment. Alexey and Kristina are ending their marriage here, while Dimon and Lenya are raising hell and pushing Goa to its partying limits. Kosmos the Guru ("just don't call him that") dispenses the chemicals that in a bat of an eyelid will take you to an alternate reality. There are different destinies here. There are a myriad of people. But all of them have one Motherland, which is easy not to love as long it is close to you

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.

Alexey Tsaryov is a 17-year-old school leader and a promising champion of a junior alpine ski team. Alexey has a girlfriend Lina and a friend Kostya, his rival both in sport and in love. Alexey is first in every way. He is self-confident, he does not know how to lose and does not wish to lose. But suddenly everything changes. After a tragic accident that befalls Alexey because of Kostya, their friendship has to withstand a challenge. But the moral courage, goodness and love will help endure all the ordeals and will bring everyone to their personal victories.

A story based on love between Anton Chekhov and a young writer Lidiya Avilova.

An unscrupulous debt collector who is a prominent member of the Moscow elite has just a few hours to refute an accusation that might cost him his job and his life.

1979: Cousins Carole and Jérôme go on an organized trip to Odessa, behind the Iron Curtain. During the day, posing as tourists celebrating their engagement, they visit monuments and museums. In the evening they slip away from the group and meet “refuseniks”, Jews persecuted by the Soviet regime for wanting to leave the country. While Carole is motivated by political commitment and a taste for risk, Jérôme’s motivation is Carole.

A story of a successful businessman who falls in love with a silent movies actress and starts to look everywhere for a woman who looks exactly like her.

A story about a friendship between talented famous musician and eleven years old girl.

Three friends decide to spend day in the beach but suddenly tragic memories are starting to affect each one of them.