20 of the best films to help understand what’s happening in Ukraine

Documentaries and fiction features that contextualise the unfolding horrors in the former Soviet republic, as chosen by researchers at Ukraine’s Dovzhenko national film centre in Kyiv

1. Oxygen Starvation (1992)

One of the first non-state funded films of an independent Ukraine, this study of a Ukrainian soldier dealing with the traditional abuse handed out to new recruits in the Soviet army is based on the real-life experiences of director Andrii Donchyk and writer Yurii Andrukhovych.

2. Chernobyl: Chronicles of the Difficult Weeks (1987)

A documentary that started shooting only days after the catastrophic nuclear power plant explosion. Director Volodymyr Shevchenko died of radiation poisoning a month after its release.

3. Tomorrow Is a Holiday (1987)

Shot at the start of the “perestroika” era, this exposed the difficulties of everyday life at a poultry processing factory. Very different from the then standard propaganda film, this depicted a deep social crisis in Soviet society.

4. The Wall (1988)

Documentary about the destruction of the Wall of Memory, the monumental avant-garde reliefs at Kyiv crematorium that artists Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko had been working on since 1968, after local authorities concreted them over in 1982. Restoration of the artwork finally began in August 2021.

5. Levels of Democracy (1992)

A montage of rough video telling the story of the mass demonstrations that took place in Kyiv during the last years of perestroika and the first year of independence in 1991 – in particular, the congress of the People’s Movement of Ukraine.

6. Varta1, Lviv, Ukraine (2015)

Documentary exploring the activities of the Automaidan movement, a group of activist drivers who used the digital radio channel Varta 1 to briefly patrol the streets of Lviv after the police withdrew in response to the angry protests of February 2014.

7. Maidan (2014)

Sergei Loznitsa’s study of the Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv in 2013 and 2014 that recorded various stages of the protest on a fixed camera. The wide international reach of Loznitsa’s unbiased view of chaotic historical events meant it became one of Euromaidan’s most important documents.

8. The Black Book of Maidan (2014)

A formidable piece of collaborative documentary film-making by a group of second-year students recreating the taut emotional challenges of the experience of directly participating in a revolution.

9. Euromaidan: The Rough Cut (2014)

Produced by the artistic collective #BABYLON’13, a collection of footage from the best Ukrainian directors of the new generation asking the audience – in the makers’ words – to “live through three months of protest” together with them.

10. All Things Ablaze (2014)

A ground-level study of the revolutionary events of Maidan co-directed by Oleksandr Techinskyi, Aleksey Solodunov and Dmitry Stoykov showing the multi-faceted nature of the revolution, and of Ukrainian society itself.

11. Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom (2015)

Probably the best known of all Maidan documentaries, an Oscar-nominated film directed by Israeli-American Evgeny Afineevsky that presents a clear narrative of a complex chain of events. It’s been on Netflix since 2015 and has become one of the most widely watched accounts of recent Ukrainian history.

12. The Earth Is Blue as an Orange (2020)

Successful documentary about a Donbas family – single mother Hanna and her four children – who hide their war-zone fear behind their passion for playing music and making movies about themselves. A quote from a poem by Paul Éluard forms the film’s title, a perfect metaphor for the surreal world between war and peace.

13. War Note (2020)

A diary film of personal videos of Ukrainian soldiers who have been defending Donbas since 2014 shows the war in unprecedented close-up. The captions indicate that some of the diarists did not survive the conflict.

14. The Cacophony of Donbas (2018)

With a title referring to Dziga Vertov’s 1931 Soviet-worker propaganda film Enthusiasm: The Symphony of Donbas, this archive-montage film by Ihor Minaiev traces the industrial myth of the Donbas from Soviet times through the chaotic 1990s and beyond. Helpful for understanding the background of the occupation of the Donetsk region in 2014 by the Putin regime.

15. Stronger Than Arms (2019)

Another resistance-cinema product of the #BABYLON’13 collective about the Ukrainian revolution and subsequent war in eastern Ukraine. The title is derived from a phrase one of the film-makers heard: “Your cameras are stronger than arms.”

16. No Obvious Signs (2018)

The title alludes to a phrase doctors use to describe soldiers who need help with mental traumas. A film about a female military officer who is undergoing a long rehabilitation as she tries to come to terms with the horrors of war, this is an expansion of the human rights project Invisible Battalion, which campaigns for gender equality in the Ukrainian military.

17. Atlantis (2019)

Acclaimed film set in 2025 – a year after Ukraine’s “victory” in the war with Russia – about a former army scout who is part of a humanitarian mission that looks for and exhumes the bodies of dead soldiers.

18. Donbas (2018)

From prominent director Sergei Loznitsa, a kaleidoscope of stories about the conflict in Donbas: a producer for a propaganda TV channel, militiamen searching checkpoints, field commanders posing for journalists, a bandit wedding. Inspired by YouTube videos from Donetsk and Luhansk, this is a study of war and post-truth.

19. Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die (2017)

One of Ukraine’s highest grossing films tells the story of a Ukrainian battalion’s two-week mission at Donetsk airport in 2014 while it was under attack from pro-Russian militants. Along with the fighting, the soldiers try to comprehend numerous philosophical questions about the nature of war, the enemy and their own identity as Ukrainians.

20. Homeward (2019)

Beautifully resonant drama that reflects on the relations between Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians. One of Mustafa’s son dies in the war in eastern Ukraine and, together with his other son, takes the body to Crimea for burial. It is about the alienation felt when people are excluded from society, from each other and from a whole nation.

Anna Onufrienko, Arsenii Kniazkov, Stanislav Menzelevskyi, Stanislav Bytiutskyi and Oleksandr Teliuk

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Atlantis review – strangely upbeat exploration of war-ravaged Ukraine
Valentyn Vasyanovych’s award-winning drama casts deeply likable non-professionals – most with direct experience of the conflict with Russia

Leslie Felperin

03, May, 2021 @11:00 AM

Article image
The best films of 2020 so far
Adam Sandler is a gem of jewellery dealer, Dev Patel is inspired casting as David Copperfield, while Keira Knightley disrupts the 1970 Miss World contest in these top picks – listed in date order – from the UK release schedule this year

Guardian film

12, May, 2020 @5:00 AM

Article image
Reflection review – a shaken, horrifying outcry for Ukraine – and statement of hope
Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s enigmatic war drama, set in Donbas, is brutal in its depiction of conflict but also elusively redemptive

Phil Hoad

30, May, 2022 @2:00 PM

Article image
Butterfly Vision review – grim drama about Ukrainian prisoners of the Donbas war
This film offers an unsparing view of how PoWs are treated when they return home – but it may not reflect the current mood

Cath Clarke

15, May, 2023 @10:00 AM

Article image
In the Fog review – Sergei Loznitsa’s meditation on the poisonous shame of collaboration
When a Nazi collaborator is led into the Belarusian forest to be executed, why doesn't he protest? Loznitsa's lacerating film explores the agonies of war and puts European history on trial

Peter Bradshaw

25, Apr, 2013 @2:30 PM

Article image
Natural Light review – reprisals and revenge in chilling examination of the toll of war
Documentary director Dénes Nagy explores how conflict erodes loyalty, morality and human consciousness in his award-winning first feature

Peter Bradshaw

09, Nov, 2021 @10:00 AM

Article image
Klondike review – Ukrainian-Russian couple face war on their doorstep
An expectant husband-and-wife’s lives are shattered when their home in Donbas is hit by a bomb in Maryna Er Gorbach’s powerful drama

Leslie Felperin

03, Oct, 2023 @8:00 AM

Article image
The 50 top films of 2017 in the US: the full list
A heartrending coming-of-age love story tops our assessment of the best films on US screens over the past year, pipping a kid’s-eye view of Florida, political intrigue, dystopian futures and nightmarish presents

05, Dec, 2017 @12:00 PM

Article image
Streaming: the best films about the atomic bomb
Ahead of Christopher Nolan’s biopic of ‘father of the atomic bomb’ J Robert Oppenheimer, in cinemas next week, we explore the bomb’s legacy on film, from Hiroshima Mon Amour to Dr Strangelove

Guy Lodge

16, Jul, 2023 @7:00 AM

Article image
Battling on: what Russia's unrelenting appetite for second world war films means
Heroism, tragedy – and lots of tanks … the Russian obsession with the war is as strong as the west’s – but it conveys a very different message

Alex Cox

01, Sep, 2020 @11:56 AM