1. Railway Station (Dworzec)
Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.
It has an average vote of 4.8 on TMDB.
2. An Ordinary Country (Zwyczajny kraj)
The story of what daily life was like in Poland under communism: private conversations, cruel interrogations, recruitment attempts, recorded and filmed with hidden devices; of how the secret services spied on every activity of ordinary citizens: nothing escaped the brutal system of control developed by the Soviets in the name of freedom.
It has an average vote of 4.5 on TMDB.
3. Traitors Within
This documentary profiles some of the most notorious spies in U.S. history--their motivations and methods, how they were caught, and the damage they did to American lives and security. Includes: the John Walker spy ring, Edward Lee Howard, Aldrich Ames, and Robert Hanssen.
4. Women of the Gulag (Женщины ГУЛАГа)
Through unique and candid interviews the film tells the compelling and tragic stories of the six women – last survivors of the Gulag, the brutal system of repression and terror that devastated the Soviet population during the regime of Stalin.
It has an average vote of 4.5 on TMDB.
5. People of Russia
This FitzPatrick Miniature visits the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , the largest geographically unbroken political unit in the world, covering one-sixth of the world's land mass.
6. Palace for the People (Дворците на народа)
The life and death of socialist architectural monsters. An epic fairy-tale in five chapters.
It has an average vote of 8.7 on TMDB.
7. Congrès de Tours 1920: The Birth of the French Communist Party (Congrès de Tours. 1920 : La Naissance des deux gauches)
(Congrès de Tours. 1920 : La Naissance des deux gauches)
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
8. Barbarossa: Hitler Turns East (Barbarossa: Hitler Turns East)
Hitler's invasion of Russia was one of the landmark events of World War II. This documentary reveals the lead-up to the offensive, its impact on the war and the brinksmanship that resulted from the battle for Moscow. Rare footage from both German and Russian archives and detailed maps illustrate the conflict, while award-winning historian and author John Erickson provides insight into the pivotal maneuvers on the eastern front.
9. My Favorite War (Mans mīļākais karš)
Ilze Burkovska, a little girl who is obsessed with stories of World War II and will be a filmmaker in a distant future, lives in Latvia under the totalitarian boot of the Soviets and the ominous shadow of the many menaces and horrors of the Cold War.
It has an average vote of 6.7 on TMDB.
10. CIA vs KGB: Battleground Berlin (KGB-CIA, au corps à corps)
For 50 years, Berlin was the symbol of the Cold War. The city at the heart of the intelligence war between the US and the Soviet bloc. Thousands of KGB or CIA, agents observed each other, cogs in the biggest information war in history.
11. You Can't Live Like That (Так жить нельзя)
A film about the sociopolitical condition of the Soviet society at the end of the eighties.
It has an average vote of 3 on TMDB.
12. Soviet Bus Stops
“There’s a bus stop I want to photograph.” This may sound like a parody of an esoteric festival film, but Canadian Christopher Herwig’s photography project is entirely in earnest, and likely you will be won over by his passion for this unusual subject within the first five minutes. Soviet architecture of the 1960s and 70s was by and large utilitarian, regimented, and mass-produced. Yet the bus stops Herwig discovers on his journeys criss-crossing the vast former Soviet Bloc are something else entirely: whimsical, eccentric, flamboyantly artistic, audacious, colourful. They speak of individualism and locality, concepts anathema to the Communist doctrine. Herwig wants to know how this came to pass and tracks down some of the original unsung designers, but above all he wants to capture these exceptional roadside way stations on film before they disappear.
13. :03 from Gold
The 1972 Olympic men's basketball final, in which Team USA was accorded their first ever loss since the sport was adopted in competition, was one of the most controversial events in history the history of the Games.
14. Test of a clean hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons (Испытание чистой водородной бомбы мощностью 50 млн тонн)
Documentary movie about testing of the largest nuclear weapon in history, the Tsar Bomba. Declassified and made available to the public in 2020.
15. Closing Gambit: 1978 Korchnoi versus Karpov and the Kremlin
The story of the 1978 World Chess Championship between the Soviet Communist Party's protege, Anatoly Karpov and the traitor and Soviet defector, Viktor Korchnoi. One of those instances in life where truth is stranger than fiction.
It has an average vote of 8.7 on TMDB.
16. Man with a Movie Camera (Человек с киноаппаратом)
A cameraman wanders around with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling inventiveness.
It has an average vote of 7.9 on TMDB.
17. The History of the Civil War (История гражданской войны)
The epic story of the Russian Civil War : the White Terror, the counterrevolutionary uprisings, the guerrilla war, the Kolchak front, the Wrangel front and the Kronstadt rebellion. Chaos and violence, devastation and death.
It has an average vote of 3.3 on TMDB.
18. Disaster at Chernobyl
The explosion at Chernobyl was ten times worse than the Hiroshima bomb and was due to a combination of human error and imperfect technology. An account of the sixty critical minutes prior to the explosion of the nuclear power plant on the night of April 26, 1986.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
19. The Hitler–Stalin Pact (Le Pacte Hitler-Staline : autopsie d'un cataclysme)
How could Hitler and Stalin, sworn ideological enemies, come to a secret pact in 1939? The captivating and detailed story of the diplomatic fiasco that led to the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact and its devastating consequences.
It has an average vote of 8.2 on TMDB.
20. The Centuries Surround Me with Fire
A documentary, originally produced for Dutch television, on the life and works of Osip Mandelstam , the groundbreaking Soviet poet and dissident.