The Inhabited Island

The Inhabited Island (Obitaemyy ostrov, 2009) is a big-budget Russian science-fiction epic from director Fyodor Bondarchuk, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Sometime in the 22nd century, young scout pilot Maxim Kammerer crashes on the alien world of Saraksh and loses his ship within minutes, stranding him with no way back.

The civilization he finds has stalled at roughly Earth's twentieth century and is still bleeding from a nuclear war — ruined cities, mass paranoia, a peace that could collapse any day. Faceless rulers known as the Unknown Fathers keep the population docile through radio towers that quietly bend the human will. Raised on ideals of freedom, Maxim can't read the rules of this place and slowly drifts toward the resistance. The cast includes Vasily Stepanov, Yuliya Snigir, Pyotr Fyodorov and Bondarchuk himself.

It's adapted from the Strugatsky brothers' novel, long considered one of Soviet sci-fi's toughest books to film, and it spares no expense building the bombed-out cityscapes of Saraksh. This is part one of a two-film story, so it ends mid-arc — go in ready for the sequel. For fans of Russian genre cinema and dystopias, it's a direct hit. Stream The Inhabited Island (2009) online on iFILM.