Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina (1935), starring Greta Garbo, is the Hollywood take on Tolstoy you can watch online on iFILM. The wife of the cold official Karenin travels from St. Petersburg to Moscow to see her brother, and on the journey she meets the cavalry officer Vronsky. One look, and the orderly life she's built begins to come apart.

What follows is the kind of affair society never forgives. Anna leaves her husband for Vronsky, and the drawing rooms that once welcomed her shut their doors with icy politeness. Standing between Anna and the son she adores is the wounded Karenin, played by Basil Rathbone. Garbo doesn't play a scandal — she plays a woman who chose feeling over safety and pays for it in full: reputation, motherhood, peace of mind. Fredric March is Vronsky; a young Freddie Bartholomew plays her boy, Sergei.

The film was directed by Clarence Brown, Garbo's regular collaborator at MGM, and it was her second crack at the role after the silent Love in 1927. At 93 black-and-white minutes, its real currency is Garbo's face in close-up, which says more than the dialogue ever does. For anyone meeting Tolstoy through the screen, this version offers a portrait of one woman rather than a tour of the plot. Stream Anna Karenina (1935) online on iFILM.