Soviet science fiction pushed the boundaries of the genre long before the Space Race amplified global interest in space travel. Yakov Protazanov’s 1924 silent classic Aelita explored the mundane realities of post-civil war Moscow while introducing early sci-fi elements. This era of radical experimentation ended due to heavy state censorship, which remained strict until the late 1950s. Although restrictions loosened in the 1960s and 1970s, filmmakers still faced pushback for overt political dissent or unorthodox storytelling.
Science fiction became an effective medium to work around these suffocating rules. Dystopian conflicts served as allegories for totalitarianism and state corruption. Filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky and Konstantin Lopushansky took a philosophical approach to fantastical settings, focusing on bleak, desolate landscapes that mirrored collective decay. If you are looking for the best Soviet-era or Russian sci-fi movies, here are five genre picks currently available on streaming.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris
Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film Solaris is often described as the anti-2001: A Space Odyssey. While Stanley Kubrick’s film explores the anxieties of technological advancement through deliberate starkness, Tarkovsky sidesteps spectacle to examine the human condition. The story centers on a space mission that has inexplicably halted while orbiting the titular planet. Psychologist Kris Kelvin travels to the space station to treat traumatized scientists, only to experience the same disorienting phenomena that the skeleton crew encountered.
The sentient planet of Solaris is not home to hostile AI or malevolent aliens. It acts as a psychological mirror that reflects our deepest desires and regrets back to us. This creates a palpable sense of warmth and pathos, turning the story into a tragic meditation on loss. Treating Solaris and 2001 as companion films paints a more comprehensive picture of where we are headed. While the hard science of progress is undeniable, we cannot move forward without empathy for our collective limitations.
Georgiy Daneliya’s Kin-dza-dza!
Georgiy Daneliya’s Kin-dza-dza! is an absurd entry set in 1980s Moscow. The film opens with construction foreman Vladimir Mashkov crossing paths with a strange man in a tattered coat who repeatedly asks about the number of his planet in the Tentura. Vladimir and a Georgian student fiddle with a teleportation device, accidentally landing them on the planet Pluke in the Kin-dza-dza galaxy.
Daneliya rejects the sleek aesthetic of futuristic sci-fi in favor of salvage punk. The film features heavily battered vehicles and machines that barely function with the help of repurposed junk. This aesthetic satirizes social hierarchy, as the humanoid inhabitants of Pluke practice arbitrary casteism that creates a societal divide for no reason. The absurdity of surrealist comedy becomes a vehicle to critique late-Soviet society, especially resource scarcity and the absurd nature of governments that wish to harm the people they are supposed to protect.
Egor Abramenko’s Sputnik
Egor Abramenko’s modern Russian sci-fi flick Sputnik stands out despite retreading familiar ground. Set in 1983 Soviet-era Kazakhstan, the film opens with a crash landing. The sole survivor, Konstantin Veshnyakov, has no memories of the event. Experts at a military research facility bring in Dr. Tatyana, a controversial psychiatrist known for unorthodox methods.
After psychologically intense testing, Tatyana realizes that Konstantin is not the sole survivor of the crash. An unknown creature formed a symbiotic bond with him before the event. Sputnik captures Soviet-era paranoia and the moral corruption that lurked in secretive military compounds during this era. The film is not too interested in the alien itself. Instead, it points fingers at the opportunistic humans willing to weaponize an alien parasite for nefarious purposes. By wanting to control a creature that feeds on human fear, humanity gives in to its cruelest impulses.
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Stalker
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic is a stunning read, but Tarkovsky turned it into Stalker, arguably one of the most poignant sci-fi films ever made. Tarkovsky opens the film with a stark sepia tone, highlighting the bleakness of everyday reality where a stalker repeatedly ventures into a restricted, hazardous wasteland known as the Zone. The Stalker decides to take a Writer and a Professor into the Zone, which supposedly has a room that grants people’s innermost desires.
As soon as we enter this No Man’s Land, Tarkovsky shifts to a rich, vibrant palette that makes the Zone look both eerie and otherworldly. Stalker dwells on granular detail to tell a story steeped in existential crisis. The Writer ponders the value of creating art in the absence of an audience, while the Professor takes a cold, utilitarian approach to the journey. Between lingering shots of industrial waste and dialogues about moral decay, we are left to wonder about the Stalker’s motivations. The Zone is a maze-like mirror, exposing the ugliest parts of human desire and reflecting them back to us.
Aleksei German’s Hard to Be a God
The 2013 version of Hard to Be a God is a monumental adaptation of the eponymous novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. This Aleksei German film is visceral, hyper-detailed, and, to some, unthinkably grotesque. The film follows a team of scientists traveling to the planet Arkanar, which is populated by humans identical to those on Earth. Even so, the planet has not progressed beyond the cultural conventions of medieval Europe.
Scientific invention, or even the mildest intellectual discourse, is frowned upon and punishable by execution. Although the scientists are cautioned to be careful, somebody needs to eventually intervene and put a stop to such senseless violence. Hard to Be a God will have little appeal for those expecting clear-cut plot reveals or traditional sci-fi norms. It is beautiful and bizarre, defying what a science fiction narrative should look and feel like. The film asks deeply uncomfortable questions about the rise of fascist governments and a culture that eats itself alive due to willful ignorance.
Source: Polygon
