Man with a Movie Camera is my favorite silent film, but Eisenstein’s stuff is great, too.

The Cranes are Flying is a top-notch tearjerker.

The Color of Pomegranates is another all-time favorite - stunningly beautiful, more of a poem than a film.

Andrei Rublev isn’t recommended as often as later Tarkovsky films but it’s my favorite of his. One of the few medieval movies that actually feels medieval (Marketa Lazarova, a Czech film from a few years later, is another).

I’ve heard great things about July Rain but haven’t seen it yet.

Here’s a funny Georgian film, Blue Mountains, that’s often claimed to be about “the crumbling Soviet system” . . . it’s not, it’s just a satire of bureaucracy.

I really enjoyed July Rain (romance), Courier (coming of age), and I am Cuba (the story of the revolution)

White Sun of the Desert, a classic Soviet “western”

Ivan Vasilievich Changes Profession (Иван Васильевич меняет профессию) is a Soviet comic science fiction film directed by Leonid Gaidai in June 1973. It was one of the most attended films in the Soviet Union in 1973, with more than 60 million tickets sold. The story begins in 1973 Moscow, where engineer Aleksandr “Shurik” Timofeyev (Aleksandr Demyanenko) is working on a time machine in his apartment. By accident, he sends Ivan Vasilievich Bunsha (Yury Yakovlev), superintendent of his apartment building, and George Miloslavsky (Leonid Kuravlyov), a burglar, back into the time of Ivan IV “The Terrible”. The pair is forced to disguise themselves, with Bunsha dressing up as Ivan IV (tsar) and Miloslavsky as a knyaz (duke) of the same name. Find it on youtube

The Diamond Arm (Бриллиантовая рука) is a crime comedy film first released in 1969, directed by director Leonid Gaidai and starred several famous Soviet actors, including Yuri Nikulin, Andrei Mironov, Anatoli Papanov, Nonna Mordyukova and Svetlana Svetlichnaya. The Diamond Arm has become a Russian cult film and is considered by many Russian contemporaries to be one of the finest comedies of all time. It was also one of the all-time leaders at the Soviet box office with over 76,700,000 theatre admissions in the Soviet era. The plot of the film was based on a real-life news item about Swiss smugglers who tried to transport jewels in an orthopedic cast. Find it on youtube

The Most Charming and Attractive (Самая обаятельная и привлекательная) is a 1985 romantic comedy. Also on youtube

The Blonde Around the Corner (Блондинка за углом) is a 1984 romantic comedy about an astrophysicist who begins to work at a grocery store where he falls in love with a saleswoman. Various streaming links if you duckduckgo the title

Come and See is a 1985 Soviet anti-war film –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_and_See

Aelita Queen of Mars is available free on archive.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_the_Soviet_Union

I must be very drunk, because I did not see anyone post Battleship Potemkin, the quintessential Soviet edutainment -movie. So yeah, that’s my suggestion.

Thanks for the thread, going straight to my bookmarks!

Din-kza-kza was on YouTube when I saw it

A silly sci fi movie that is like a third of what George Lucas made star wars out of

Pretty sure there’s a subbed Kin Dza Dza on YouTube.

The Mirror is really good, Tarkovskys work in general is.

I also love Man with a Movie Camera.

Well, Stalker and Solaris. I’ve heard Hard to be a God is good but I havenkt seen it.

Irony of Fate (1975), romantic comedy.

The courtship behavior is outdated and probably cringe by today’s standards, but it’s a Soviet/Russian cultural staple that plays on television every New Year’s Eve when families gather, so it’s one of the most well known films in the Soviet/Russian culture even to this day. Watch this on New Year’s Eve for maximum cultural immersion.

Solaris (1972), science fiction.

The Soviet response to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey! Even though the film was already planned before Kubrick’s was released, it conveniently and incidentally provided a counter-narrative to the American techno-centric view of the future and instead delved into the humanity aspect of a futuristic society.

Dersu Usuzula by Kurosawa (filmed in USSR, produced by mosfilm)

The top two that one really needs to see in my humble opinion are “Man with a Movie Camera” by Dziga Vertov and “Battleship Potemkin” by Sergei Eisenstein. Both directors tried to find a filmic language that would serve the communist cause and both succeeded. You’ve never seen films like these before.

Circus was a fun bit of agitprop cinema that has the Stalin seal of approval.

I’ve also been meaning to get around to watching Two Soldiers

The Diamond Arm is my fav

Return to Treasure Island

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUykh5-HGZ0

Mimino. It’s a masterpiece from homeland, which at the time was the Georgian SSR. Highly recommend.