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Stream Russian Movies All Day with 3 Accessible Options
Who doesn’t love a great “buy one, get one free” sale?
If you are learning the Russian language, you can take advantage of one great B1G1 deal by learning about the Russian language and culture at the same time through good old-fashioned movies.
In this post, we are going to share a few great sources for streaming Russian movies to provide you with a comprehensive learning experience!
Contents
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Why Movies Can Help Us Learn Russian More Efficiently
For disbelievers of the educational value of movies, we challenge you to consider these benefits:
- Immersing yourself in Russian movies doesn’t just mean learning the language, but also the culture and way of life. Movies can show different perspectives and times throughout the history of Russia, the former Soviet Union and other Russian-speaking areas.
- Movies give us front row access to hearing casual Russian, learning slang and learning idioms. Movies provide more of an interactive experience that allows us to learn actual language without popping open a textbook. It is great for those planning to move to a Russian-speaking country or those who want deeper insight into Russian-language culture.
- Movies are an ideal complement to your daily language learning routine. For example, you might intensively study the vocabulary in one of FluentU’s shorter authentic video clips, then watch a full-length movie later that day to get a more extensive Russian practice session. You can also take notes on the movie’s vocabulary and add them to your FluentU vocabulary lists later.
Stream Russian Movies All Day with 2 Accessible Options
There are a multitude of sites that will allow you to stream movies. Netflix may be the most obvious resource and it does have some great options, but the streaming services we have chosen below are also high contenders worth looking into. They provide a wealth of choices, some of which are not available on any other streaming services.
Amazon Prime
After Netflix, Amazon Prime is probably the best-known way to stream movies, and there are many Russian language films available to choose from.
“Stalingrad”
Here is one perfect example. This film is a true classic and one of the most famous Russian films about World War II. By viewing this story about the devastating battle in Stalingrad, a city in Russia (now called Volgograd), in 1942, you can immerse yourself in the most infamous battle in the country’s history through action-packed scenes.
You can learn a lot of army/military/war terms in this film, such as солдат (soldier), пистолет (gun) and атака (attack).
Now let’s look at another couple of great options.
SovietMoviesOnline.com
This site only has Russian-language movies, which makes your search much easier, as you don’t need to pick one language and exclude movies in others. There are lots of great movies here, so we have gone ahead and included a few different examples for you.
“The Days of the Turbins”
This movie tells a story about the lives of the Russian Guards during the Russian revolution in 1917. That year, two revolutions aimed to dismantle the tsarist regime and bring about communism and the rise of the Soviet Union.
This movie is based upon the novel “The White Guard” by Mikhail Bulgakov.
There is a lot of terminology about directions and movement as it is wartime and family members are waiting for their loved ones to return. You can learn words such as железнодорожная станция (train station), стоять (to stand) and приeдет (will come, will drive over).
“Operation Happy New Year”
Russians are big on holidays and celebrations, and there is no bigger occasion in the country than the New Year!
This movie gives a detailed look at how Russia celebrates the New Year, an event that may be very surprising and interesting from an American or otherwise non-Russian perspective.
Combining American Christmas traditions such as Santa Claus and the Christmas tree with New Year traditions of counting down to midnight and drinking champagne, Russians go all out on December 31st!
Laugh and learn about this important celebration while watching this Russian comedy, but don’t forget to focus on learning Russian words. This title is full of colorful language and adjectives like xорошо (good), лучше (better) and мерзкая (female form for “dirty,” “disgusting,” “nasty”).
“Brigada”
For the most modern film in this post, we turn to the 1990s, when crime is running rampant through Russia. This is a story about a group of friends that turn into mafiosos. Although they are criminals, they are also young, fun and often endearing in their friendships and romances.
This is a great film for learning Russian slang, like ладно (OK), давай (literally, “to give,” or “let’s go,” “let’s do it!”) or я в курсе (literally, “I’m in the course,” or “I know, I’m in on it”).
Streaming movies are a gateway to exploring the Russian language and culture.
Explore the sites above to be immersed in the language, improve your listening skills and speak better Russian!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Renata Ilitsky is a professional content writer with over 10 years of experience. She specializes in creating unique and engaging content for any industry. To read some of Renata’s other work, please view her writing portfolio.
