5 Mind-Bending Soviet Era Sci-Fi Movies You Can Watch on Streaming
You can now stream some of the best entries in the genre
Soviet sci-fi pushed the boundaries of the genre long before its amplification during the Space Race. One of the most enduring Soviet silent classics is about space travel: Yakov Protazanov’s Aelita (1924), which explores the mundane realities of post-civil war Moscow while championing early sci-fi elements. Aelita, however, was released during an age of radical experimentation, which would soon come to an end due to heavy state censorship until the late 1950s. Although censorship was comparatively lax throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, any overt political dissent or unorthodox filmmaking was met with pushback.
Sci-fi became an effective medium to work around these suffocating rules. Dystopian conflicts were now allegories for totalitarianism and state corruption. Filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky and Konstantin Lopushansky also took a more philosophical approach to these fantastical settings, focusing on bleak, desolate landscapes that mirrored our own collective decay.
If you’re on the lookout for some of the best Soviet-era or Russian (post-1992) sci-fi movies, here are five genre picks that are currently available on streaming.
1 Solaris (1972)
Where to watch: Prime Video, Apple TV
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris has often been described as the anti-2001: A Space Odyssey, but there’s more to this layered film than being the antithesis to Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic language. 2001’s deliberate starkness explores the anxieties of technological advancement, while Tarkovsky’s 1972 film sidesteps spectacle to examine the human condition. Solaris centers on a space mission that has inexplicably come to a halt while orbiting the titular planet, prompting psychologist Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) to travel to the space station and offer treatment to the traumatized scientists. This is easier said than done, as Kelvin experiences the same disorienting phenomena that the mission’s skeleton crew had encountered before his arrival.
Although Kubrick and Tarkovsky approach human progress through a wildly different lens, they’re two sides of the same coin. Solaris explores what would happen if our minds resisted evolutionary leaps. The sentient planet of Solaris isn’t home to hostile AI or malevolent aliens. It is a psychological mirror that reflects our deepest desires and regrets back to us, trapping us in a web of memory and guilt. There’s a palpable sense of warmth and pathos here, 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 impossible to deny, we can never truly move forward without empathy for our collective limitations.
2 Kin-dza-dza! (1986)
Where to watch: Prime Video, Hoopla
Georgiy Daneliya’s Kin-dza-dza! is an absurd genre entry. Set in 1980s Moscow, the film opens with construction foreman Vladimir Mashkov (Stanislav Lyubshin) crossing paths with a strange man in a tattered coat. “Tell me the number of your planet in the Tentura?” the man repeatedly asks everyone passing by, piquing Vladimir’s curiosity, along with that of a Georgian student (Levan Gabriadze). The mysterious man points to a teleportation device, which Vladimir fiddles with. This accidentally takes Vladimir and the student to the planet Pluke in the Kin-dza-dza galaxy, landing them in an adventure they never asked to be a part of.
Daneliya rejects the sleek aesthetic of futuristic sci-fi in favor of “salvage punk” with its heavily battered vehicles or machines that barely function with the help of repurposed or scavenged junk. The intention is to satirize 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’re supposed to protect.
3 Sputnik (2020)
Where to watch: Prime Video, Kanopy
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 (Pyotr Fyodorov), has no memories of the event. Experts at a military research facility bring in Dr. Tatyana (Oksana Akinshina), a controversial psychiatrist known for her unorthodox methods. After some 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 does a competent job of capturing Soviet-era paranoia and the moral corruption that lurked in secretive military compounds during this era. While heightened to suit the mold of sci-fi, the film isn’t too interested in the alien itself. Instead, Sputnik 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 has yet again given in to its cruelest impulses. Although Sputnik doesn’t subvert any expectations, it is a well-crafted sci-fi that insists upon character dynamics to balance out the spectacle of contending with a dangerous organism.
4 Stalker (1979)
Where to watch: Prime Video, Apple TV
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic is a stunning read to begin with, 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 (Alexander Kaidanovsky) repeatedly ventures into a restricted, hazardous wasteland known as the Zone. The Stalker decides to take the Writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) and the Professor (Nikolai Grinko) 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. Why does a man risk everything to smuggle clients into a dangerous zone, and what does he truly want? Stalker warns us about the dangers of wish-fulfillment in a way only Tarkovsky can. Just like the planet Solaris, the Zone is also a maze-like mirror, exposing the ugliest parts of human desire and reflecting them back to us.
5 Hard to Be a God (2013)
Where to watch: YouTube
Fair warning, the 2013 version of Hard to Be a God is not for everybody. This Aleksei German film is a monumental adaptation of the eponymous novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, but it is also 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 hasn’t progressed beyond the cultural conventions of medieval Europe, as 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. It is hard to be a “god” with the foreknowledge of human potential and be unable to intervene and change the future of Arkanar at the same time. Can a renaissance be forced? Is reason enough to put a stop to human barbarity? Hard to Be a God asks these deeply uncomfortable questions, pointing to the exact circumstances that lead to the rise of fascist governments and a culture that eats itself alive due to willful ignorance.