The Russian Revolution

Watch Movie

The Russian Revolution

"How Lenin seized control of Russia"

2017

0h 47m

6.3(28 votes)

Documentary

History

Overview

Starting in 1881 this film shows the personal battle between Lenin's Ulyanov family and the royal Romanovs that eventually led to the Russian revolution.

Where to Watch

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

IMDb

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

5 featured cast members

Starring

Vladimir Lenin

Self (archive footage)

Jonathan Kydd

Narrator (voice)

Joseph Stalin

Self (archive footage)

Tsarina Alexandra

Self (archive footage)

Grand Duchess Anastasia

Self (archive footage)

Creative team

Directed by: Cal Seville

Similar Movies

7.4

2001

Enemy at the Gates

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

Movie

6.8

1999

Anna and the King

The story of the romance between the King of Siam (now Thailand) and the widowed British school teacher Anna Leonowens during the 1860s. Anna teaches the children and becomes romanced by the King. She convinces him that a man can be loved by just one woman.

Movie

5.6

1937

Victoria the Great

The film biography of Queen Victoria focusing initially on the early years of her reign with her marriage to Prince Albert and her subsequent rule after Albert's death in 1861.

Movie

6.3

1938

Sixty Glorious Years

Continuing the story of 'Victoria the Great'.

Movie

7.9

1962

The Miracle Worker

The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.

Movie

6.9

1928

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

Movie

5.5

2013

Pussy Versus Putin

In 2012 two members of anarchistic female band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Mordovian labor camp for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". Russian film collective Gogol’s Wives follow each step of the feminist punk band’s battle against Putin including their first disruptive performances on a trolley bus, shooting a video about transparent elections, a controversial performance in a Red Square cathedral, and footage shot in a jail cell. Support comes from many corners including Madonna who painted the words "Pussy Riot" on her back and wore a balaclava during her Moscow show. The documentary portrays the grim state of present-day Russia, a country starkly divided between conservatism and anarchy. Pussy Riot believes that art has to be free and they're willing to take it to extremes. "Pussycat made a mess in the house," they say, and the house is Russia. The filmmakers do not seek to moralize, they simply edit events and leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.

Movie

7.0

2017

TaMtAm - Music of the time of troubles

Documentary film about the first St. Petersburg music club TaMtAm. It existed since 1991 upon 1996 and was held by Vsevolod Gakkel, ex-cellist of "Аквариум". The concept was modelled on cult NY club CBGB-OMFUG. Despite its controversial history this is the place where a new generation of Russian punk music was discovered.

Movie

7.3

2021

Napoleon: Destiny and Death

May 5, 1821. Napoleon Bonaparte, deposed emperor exiled on the island of St. Helena, is about to take his last breath. The son of a Corsican family, he has been close to death on many occasions since, as a young captain in the revolutionary army, he seized Toulon from the royalists in 1793.

Movie

7.6

1925

Battleship Potemkin

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre.

Movie

5.9

1915

The Birth of a Nation

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

Movie

7.5

1984

The Killing Fields

New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg is on assignment covering the Cambodian Civil War, with the help of local interpreter Dith Pran and American photojournalist Al Rockoff. When the U.S. Army pulls out amid escalating violence, Schanberg makes exit arrangements for Pran and his family. Pran, however, tells Schanberg he intends to stay in Cambodia to help cover the unfolding story — a decision he may regret as the Khmer Rouge rebels move in.

Movie

7.6

1987

The Last Emperor

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

Movie

6.5

1997

In Search of Mother Russia's Children

This profile of homeless young people in St. Petersburg, Russia, uses subtitles and narration to tell their tales, many of which focus on drugs, neglect and abuse.

Movie

8.1

1980

The Elephant Man

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.

Movie

2023

Poland: A Nation under Stress

In the run-up to parliamentary elections in mid-October, Polish filmmaker Marcin Wierzchowski travelled across his country to gauge the atmosphere in a society that is more divided than ever.

Movie

2016

Traces: People of the Peacock

Filmmaker Binevsa Bêrîvan travels to Armenia to capture the daily life, customs, and history of the country's Yazidi Kurdish community.

Movie

2009

Morristown: Where America Survived

A thirty-minute High Definition documentary which revisits that winter of 1779-80 when Washington’s troops arrived at the densely-wooded area just south of Morristown known as Jockey Hollow, to build a log hut city for their winter camp. The film is an eye-opening look at how the camp saved the army – and the American Revolution – from the brink of disaster. Based on John T. Cunningham’s book The Uncertain Revolution and shot on location at Morristown National Historical Park, Morristown: Where America Survived is narrated by award-winning actor Edward Herrmann, who has voiced many history documentaries over his extensive career. The program was produced by New Jersey Network.

Movie

6.4

2014

Point and Shoot

At first glance, Matthew VanDyke—a shy Baltimore native with a sheltered upbringing and a tormenting OCD diagnosis—is the last person you’d imagine on the front lines of the 2011 Libyan revolution. But after finishing grad school and escaping the U.S. for "a crash course in manhood," a winding path leads him just there. Motorcycling across North Africa and the Middle East and spending time as an embedded journalist in Iraq, Matthew lands in Libya, forming an unexpected kinship with a group of young men who transform his life. Matthew joins his friends in the rebel army against Gaddafi, taking up arms (and a camera). Along the way, he is captured and held in solitary confinement for six terrifying months.

Movie

2019

The Naked King - 18 Fragments on Revolution

In 1979, a revolution in Iran. In 1980, a revolution in Poland. The fall of the Shah, the “King of Kings,” in Iran. Mass strikes and the foundation of Solidarność (Solidarity) in Poland. What was in the minds of the young women and men who fomented revolution in their own country? What did they think when their revolution was quelled, or – as in Iran – an authoritarian regime was instituted under the name of an “Islamic Republic”?

Movie

Recommended Movies

7.2

2022

Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20

An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.

Movie

7.2

2008

The Soviet Story

“The Soviet Story” is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe’s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now...

Movie

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound

6.9

2019

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound

The history of cinematic sound, told by legendary sound designers and visionary filmmakers.

Movie

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

7.2

2018

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.

Movie

No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad

8.5

2013

No Half Measures: Creating the Final Season of Breaking Bad

A documentary about the making of season five of the acclaimed AMC series Breaking Bad.

Movie

6.1

2012

Room 237

A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.

Movie

6.4

2005

Inside Deep Throat

In 1972, a seemingly typical shoestring budget pornographic film was made in a Florida hotel: "Deep Throat," starring Linda Lovelace. This film would surpass the wildest expectation of everyone involved to become one of the most successful independent films of all time. It caught the public imagination which met the spirit of the times, even as the self-appointed guardians of public morality struggled to suppress it, and created, for a brief moment, a possible future where sexuality in film had a bold artistic potential. This film covers the story of the making of this controversial film, its stunning success, its hysterical opposition along with its dark side of mob influence and allegations of the on set mistreatment of the film's star.

Movie

8.0

2025

My Mom Jayne

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

Movie

7.4

2018

The Director and the Jedi

An intimate documentary delving into Rian Johnson's process as he comes in as a director new to the Star Wars universe.

Movie

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

7.8

2000

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Movie

6.1

2009

South of the Border

A road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents.

Movie

7.2

2025

Come See Me in the Good Light

In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.

Movie

6.6

2002

The Kid Stays in the Picture

Documentary about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans, based on his famous 1994 autobiography.

Movie

6.4

2017

Ex Libris: The New York Public Library

A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.

Movie

7.0

1971

Directed by John Ford

A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.

Movie

Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

7.9

2015

Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

Over 93 days in Ukraine, what started as peaceful student demonstrations became a violent revolution and full-fledged civil rights movement.

Movie

7.1

2020

Making The Witcher

Journey into the extraordinary world of "The Witcher" — from casting the roles to Jaskier's catchy song — in this behind-the-scenes look at the series.

Movie

6.4

2011

The Captains

The Captains is a feature-length documentary film written and directed by William Shatner. The film follows Shatner as he interviews the other actors who have portrayed starship captains in the Star Trek franchise.

Movie

6.5

2013

Downloaded

A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.

Movie

6.6

2009

The September Issue

A documentary chronicling Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour's preparations for the 2007 fall-fashion issue.

Movie