The Tolstoy Defence

Intercutting dramatic vignettes with newsreel footage, the story follows the characters from an infantry squad as they make their way from Sicily to Germany during the end of World War II.

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.

Anna Karenina, the wife of a Russian imperial minister, creates a high-society scandal by an affair with Count Vronsky, a dashing cavalry officer in 19th-century St. Petersburg.

Battle of the Bulge, World War II, 1944. Lieutenant Costa, an infantry company officer who must establish artillery observation posts in a strategic area, has serious doubts about Captain Cooney's leadership ability.

The young man must set up a clear border between Finland and Russia, white and red, enemy and friend, us and them. While the task seems clear he finds out the execution of his command in concrete situations is very difficult. Right choices turn out to be wrong ones and correcting them make things worse.

A documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of Armistice Day, and the end of the war.

A ragtag group of American stragglers battles against superior Communist troops in an abandoned Buddhist temple during the Korean War.

1988-1989. The end of the Soviet-Afghan war. The USSR begins its withdrawal from Afghanistan. Soviet General Vasiliev's son - a pilot named Alexander gets kidnapped by the mujahideen after his airplane crashes. As a result the 108th motorized infantry division's long awaited return home gets put on hold for one last mission: bring the General's son back. Based on true events the previously untold story of the courageous and tragic withdrawal campaign (through the Salang pass) reveals the danger the horror and the complexity of human nature during wartime.

In the center of the story are three main characters - Lieutenant Colonel Soshnikov, Captain Muravyov and Major Zakharov. Three ages, three different characters, three different destinies, which are destined to meet at the Khmeimim military base.

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.

In Korea, on 6 September 1950, Lieutenant Benson's platoon finds itself isolated in enemy-held territory after a retreat. Soon they are joined by Sergeant Montana, whose overriding concern is caring for his catatonic colonel. Benson and Montana can't stand each other, but together they must get the survivors to Hill 465, where they hope the division is waiting. It's a long, harrowing march, fraught with all the dangers the elusive enemy can summon.

In the war-torn countryside, an orphan and his young friend use all their skills to defend their home and people from opposing forces.

This unaired pilot for a series Fuller pitched to CBS about a U.S. infantry troop fighting its way through Nazi-held North Africa offers a fascinating new angle on Fuller’s relationship with the average foot soldier and moral complexity of war.

The incredibly powerful and timely true story of the all-black Twenty-Fourth United States Infantry Regiment, and the Houston Riot of 1917. The Houston Riot was a mutiny by 156 African American soldiers in response to the brutal violence and abuse at the hands of Houston police officers.

A racist officer is put in charge of an all-black squad of troops charged with the mission of blowing up an important hydro-dam in Nazi Germany. Their failure would delay the Allies' advance into Germany, thus prolonging the war. These African-Americans have little military training, but Captain Beau Carter has no choice. He leads the rag-tag and they turn out to be heroic.

This four-part historical drama follows the end of Catherine the Great's reign and her affair with Russian military leader Grigory Potemkin that helped shape the future of Russian politics.

Combat! is an American television program that originally aired on ABC from 1962 until 1967. The show covered the grim lives of a squad of American soldiers fighting the Germans in France during World War II. The program starred Rick Jason as platoon leader Second Lieutenant Gil Hanley and Vic Morrow as Sergeant "Chip" Saunders.

The classic BBC dramatisation of Tolstoy's epic story of love and loss set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars. Anthony Hopkins heads the cast as Pierre Bezuhov (a role for which he won the 1972 Best Actor BAFTA); Morag Hood is the impulsive and beautiful Natasha Rostova; Alan Dobie is the dour but heroic Andrei Bolkonsky; and David Swift is Napoleon, whose decision to invade Russia in 1812 has far-reaching consequences for Pierre and the Rostov and Bolkonsky families. The twenty-part serial was the vision of producer David Conroy whose principle aim was to transfer the rich characterisation and incident from Tolstoy's greatest novel to a television drama. Scripted by Jack Pulman and directed by John Davies, Conroy's War And Peace boasts superb acting, award-winning design (1972 Best Design BAFTA) and breathtaking battle sequences which were filmed in former Yugoslavia.

War and Peace is a 2007 Russian-French-Italian-German miniseries directed by Robert Dornhelm. It was broadcast in Belgium and in France in four parts during October and November 2007. It was inspired by Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, which also is divided into four parts. The actors are of different nationalities.

Russian Empire. The second decade of the twentieth century. As a result of the conflict between the Entente and the bloc of the Central Powers led by Germany, which erupted in August 1914, Russia is drawn into the First World War. A wave of unrest is rolling through the country. Revolutionary moods are increasing every day. Counterintelligence is trying with all its might to suppress the activity of German spies active in the territory of the country ...

The epic television history of the Second World War’s Eastern Front giving an unprecedented Russian perspective on the war’s most decisive and bloody theater.

Mankind The Story of All of Us is an epic 12-hour television event about the greatest adventure of all time—the history of the human race. It takes 10 billion years for the ideal planet to form and 3 billion more for the right conditions to emerge before it finally happens: mankind begins. From there unfolds a fast-paced story told here through key turning points—stepping stones in our journey from hunter-gatherer to global citizen. It’s a tale of connections—why some ideas take hold and spread around the globe, and how the lives of people in one part of the world are shaped by events in another.

Lieutenant Doronin and his troops are moved to a narrow mountain pass. The task seems simple: to defend the pass from the insurgents and not let them pass. But the 200 Russian soldiers do not expect that they will soon be facing 2000 Chechens ready for battle and will have to fight for bare survival.

The life pages of a man who changed the world but paid back everything he had. Leon Trotsky is being interviewed in Mexico city of the year 1940 by Canadian journalist Frank Jackson. During eight days they have eight interview sessions revealing the true face of Comrade Trotsky.

In late-19th-century Russian high society, St. Petersburg aristocrat Anna Karenina enters into a life-changing affair with the dashing Count Alexei Vronsky. An eight part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" from Vronsky's point of view.

When social upheaval sweeps Russia in the early 20th century, Czar Nicholas II resists change, sparking a revolution and ending a dynasty.

The film begins in 1985 in a military garrison, where a fighter aviation regiment is stationed. Two tenth graders - the daughter of the deputy commander of the regiment, Zhenya Lugovaya, and the son of the waitress of the flight canteen, Vanka Kotov - are covered with a feeling of first mutual love. Harsh dramatic events separate the characters, their life paths diverge, and they lose each other for many, many years. Vanka Kotov becomes a test pilot, Zhenya Lugovaya becomes a military surgeon. One day, fate brings the heroes together again...

1917, shortly after the assassination of Grigory Rasputin. The provisional government appoints investigator Heinrich Ivanovich Svitten to study the case of the deceased and find out who he really was for others and for the whole of Russia. Switten collects information bit by bit about the ambiguous elder, but sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish the truth from human speculation. Rasputin's confidants and even members of the royal family help him in the investigation, but everyone has a personal attitude towards this mysterious man. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, on the one hand, respects him immensely, and on the other hand, Switten notices something similar to fear.

At the center of events is Lev Garin: a charismatic and attractive corrupt customs officer. "Bad" according to generally accepted concepts, but "good" within the framework of a specific intrigue. The story begins with a high-profile crime: a major businessman Plato and his wife Ariadne, who was also Leo's lover, disappeared without a trace. The protagonist is faced with a choice: to give in to the blackmailers and endanger his career, or not to give in and endanger Ariadne's life. As events unfold, the love affair between Ariadne and Leo turns out to be not just a trap, but an abyss into which the whole life of the hero falls. No longer counting on saving himself, but desperately trying to find a way to save his family, Leo seeks to understand who and for what is taking revenge on him so consistently and subtly.