Sergei Bondarchuk

After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.

American journalist John Reed travels to Mexico during the Mexican Revolution and interviews Francisco Villa. At the same time, we learn about his relationship with his lover Mabel Dodge, his participation in the Patterson strike, and his work as a reporter during World War I.

As 1809 nears its end, Natasha attends her first ball, where Andrei falls in love with her with the intent of marriage. However, as her father demands they wait, the prince travels abroad, leaving Natasha in desperate longing. But she meets Anatol Kuragin and forgets Andrei. Part two of the four-part adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel.

In January 1943 the German army, afraid of an Allied invasion of the Balkans, launched a great offensive against Yugoslav Partisans in Western Bosnia. The only way out for Partisan forces and thousands of refugees was the bridge on the river Neretva.

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

Osip Dymov, the titular counselor and the doctor of thirty one years, serves in two hospitals at the same time: intern and anatomist. From nine o'clock in the morning and in the forenoon accepts patients, then goes to open corpses. But its income is hardly enough for a covering of expenses of the wife mad about talents and celebrities in the art and artistic environment whom it daily accepts in the house.

Soviet filmmaker Yuri Raisman once more combines political dogma with solid entertainment values in Dream of a Cossack (aka Cavalier of the Golden Star). The title character, played by future director Sergei Bondarchuk (and billed for obscure reasons as Semyon Bondarchuk), is an ex-soldier who returns home to the Kuban region, there to take up life as a farmer. Instead, he galvanizes the local citizenry into participating in a massive construction project, which will result in a new power station and canal. Thus does Raisman offer an prime example of Russian collectivism while making it seem as though it had sprung from individual initiative. Dream of a Cossack is based on a popular novel by S. Babayefsky.

The story unfolds in a post-war town in Western Ukraine. The enemy agents are trying to subvert communist writer Aleksandr Garmash using ideological diversions. In parallel, a story is told about student Rostislav Danchenko who is being recruited by enemy agents. The story is pertinent due to resurgence of ultra-nationalist underground activity in Western Ukraine after World War II.