Moscow Skyscraper

Military doctor General Klenski is arrested in Stalin's Russia in 1953 during an anti-Semitic political campaign accused of being a participant in so-called "doctors' plot".

At the end of World War II, Giovanna, a war bride living near Milan refuses to accept that her husband, Antonio, missing on the Russian front, is dead. There's a flashback to their brief courtship near her hometown of Naples, his 12-day leave to marry her, ruses to keep from deployment, and the ultimate farewell. Some years after the war, still with no word from Antonio, Giovanna goes to Russia to find him, starting in the town near the winter battle when he disappeared. Armed with his photograph, what will she find?

Andrei is the head of a gang of antisemitic skinheads clinging to the old communist ideals in post-Communist Moscow. When he learns that his long lost father actually is a Jewish bohemian living in Moscow, rather than an Afghanistan war hero, he traces him down in order to kill him. But the intriguing father and his "reactionary" lifstyle soon fascinates Andrei which leads to a clash with his gang.

Made in wartime and edited in candlelight, Mikhail Vartanov's rarely-seen masterpiece tells about his friendship with the genius Sergei Parajanov who was imprisoned by KGB "at the peak of his artistic power". Vartanov takes us back with the scenes from his censored 1969 film The Color of Armenian Land where Paradjanov is at work on his suppressed chef-d'oeuvre The Color of Pomegranates - widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time - and contrasts it with the shocking request Parajanov sent him in unpublished 1974 letters from the Soviet prisons. Vartanov's camera documents Parajanov's striking last day at work in 1990 during the making of the unfinished Confession. A monumental wordless montage - the entire sixth reel - concludes Vartanov's acclaimed documentary, which, despite the prohibitive conditions it was created in, won the admiration of many of cinema's greatest artists, including Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

The story of the great Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and his life and career during the rule of Stalin.

A documentary on Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Medvedkin, examining his tumultuous career, the rediscovery of his masterpiece Happiness, and Russia's struggles over the course of the 20th Century.

Tells the story of five people from the last generation of Soviet children who were brought up behind the Iron Curtain. Just coming of age when the USSR collapsed, they witnessed the world of their childhood crumble and change beyond recognition. Through the lives of these former schoolmates, this intimate film reveals how they have adjusted to their post-Soviet reality in today's Moscow.

This documentary explores the incredible life of Merian C. Cooper, from his time as a soldier and pilot in three different wars, to his exploits in Hollywood, as a director, producer and cinematic innovator.

During World War II, American officer Capt. Lee Mitchell (Stuart Whitman) and a British military unit boldly infiltrate German-occupied enemy territory and attempt to kidnap brilliant Nazi scientist Dr. Von Heinken (Pinkas Braun) and bring him back in one piece. While shuttling their prized captive to safety, the Allied forces courageously assist desperate refugees and tussle with overpowering German and Russian forces.

Fiona Shaw narrates this exploration of Russia's medieval origins through to its bloody expansion to become the biggest country in the world. It's a tale that set the scene for one of the world's most enigmatic figures, and his vision of modern Russia. From a tyrannical grip on ordinary citizens to rampant corruption at the highest level, this film reveals the secrets behind holding the world's largest country together in a narrative that takes in the KGB and its ancestors as well as Stalin, murder and gulags.

French television documentary film by Mathieu Schwartz, Serge de Sampigny, Yvan Demeulandre and the historic consultant Nicolas Werth about the government of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, is remembered as the instigator of the October Revolution of 1917 and, therefore, as one of the men who changed the shape of the world at that time and forever, but perhaps the actual events happened in a way different from that narrated in the history books…

Jonathan Meades examines the cult of Stalinism through its buildings and monuments.

The convoluted and moving story of Russian writer Vassili Grossman (1905-64) and his novel Life and Fate (1980), a literary masterpiece, a monumental and epic account of life under Stalin's regime of terror, a defiant cry that the KGB tried to suffocate.

The charming and still-single Joey, who has struck out on his own and moved to Hollywood, hoping to truly make it as an actor. After reuniting with his high-strung sister Gina, Joey moves in with Michael, his 20-year-old genius nephew, who unbelievably is literally a rocket scientist. However, what Joey lacks in book smarts he makes up for with people smarts – making him the best new friend his nephew could ask for.

Fluke Kelso, a dissipated, middle-aged former Oxford historian, who is in Moscow to attend a conference on the newly opened Soviet archives, receives in his hotel a very unexpected visitor.

Putin, Russia and the West is a four-part British documentary television series first shown in January and February 2012 on BBC Two about the relationship between Vladimir Putin's Russia and the West. The series is produced by Norma Percy, whose previous series include The Death of Yugoslavia, Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace, and Iran and the West. The documentary was criticized by some dissidents for being an apology for Putin's regime.

A young doctor who has graduated at the top of his class from the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry is thrust out into an isolated and impoverished country side as the village's only doctor. As he learns to adapt to his new lifestyle, he develops a morphine addiction to stay his sanity while realizing what being a doctor in the real world means.

The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century is a 1996 documentary series that aired on PBS. It chronicles World War I over eight episodes. It was narrated by Dame Judi Dench in the UK and Salome Jens in the United States. The series won two Primetime Emmy Awards: one for Jeremy Irons for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, the other for Outstanding Informational Series. In 1997, it was given a Peabody Award.

The rise of Stalin, from his early beginning as a bankrobber to the cold-blooded leader of the Soviet Union.

Lucy Worsley travels to Russia to tell the extraordinary story of the dynasty that ruled the country for more than three centuries - the Romanovs.

Follow the deadliest conflict in human history in real time, week by week, blow by blow.

A definitive account of Putin's power and how it changed the modern world.

A major political, historical, human and economic fact of the 20th century, the Gulag, the extremely punitive Soviet concentration camp system, remains largely unknown.

In a 1950s orphanage, a young girl reveals an astonishing talent for chess and begins an unlikely journey to stardom while grappling with addiction.

Set in 1965 in the midst of the Cold War, Totems follows a French scientist, Francis Mareuil, as he begins working as a spy. While working for the French Secret Service and the CIA, Mareuil meets Lyudmila Goloubeva, a pianist forced to work for the KGB. A romance blossoms between them but neither can be sure what is an expression of their true feelings, and what is the fruit of political shenanigans…

June 1941, Hitler attacks the USSR: he wants to conquer this "Living space" which he dreams of for his Reich. It comes up against enemy realities: the vastness of the territory, the polar cold and the determination of a people with inexhaustible human resources. How far will Hitler take Germany?

What it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy. A series of films by Adam Curtis.

A scripted anthology series about oppression in America.