Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina (1997) is Bernard Rose's lavish adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel, available to watch online on iFILM. Sophie Marceau stars as a St. Petersburg aristocrat who has everything society prizes — rank, a respectable husband, a beloved son — and almost no warmth, until a chance meeting at a Moscow railway station upends all of it.

Sean Bean's cavalry officer, Count Vronsky, falls for Anna at once, and what begins as a guarded attraction is soon the gossip of every drawing room in the capital. Anna chooses to follow her heart openly, and pays the price the era reserved for a woman who broke its rules. Running quietly alongside her story is that of Levin (Alfred Molina), a landowner searching for meaning far from the ballrooms. James Fox and Fiona Shaw fill out the cast.

What sets this version apart is that it was shot on location in Russia — inside real St. Petersburg palaces and on Moscow streets rather than on a backlot — with a score drawn from Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. It's not the most faithful reading of Tolstoy, but it's a sumptuous one, made for anyone who loves sweeping period drama about passion and consequence. Stream Anna Karenina (1997) online on iFILM.