Brilliantly captures late 90s grab-it-all post-Soviet Russia. The first film follows Danila (the wonderful Sergei Bodrov Jr, who tragically died in a landslide in the Caucausus in 2002) as he leaves the family home for St Petersburg to join his older brother, who's become involved with the mafia.

In the second film, he moves to Moscow and takes a detour to the US to get revenge for the murder of a friend. Great soundtrack on both films. The second part is my favourite.

www.amazon.co.uk for versions with English subtitles (search for Brother, not Brat)

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Nikita Mikhalkov’s epic about the 30s purges, which of course culminates in an apartment just off Red Square.

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This is a perfect example of a Russian art house movie. Set back in the 50s in a small Russian village it tells a story of a woman whose life was affected by the war and by mundane harvest work.

The way it's filmed is very interesting, because it's so calm and gentle and at the same time quite hard and sad to watch. It manages to transmit "Russianness" in the way it's filmed.

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