A Circle

A Circle (1972) is a Soviet crime thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Herbert Rappaport and starring Alexander Zbruev, it follows police captain Aleshin, who is handed a case after a quantity of opium goes missing from a chemical plant's warehouse.

Every clue points inward — the thief has to be someone on staff. The job gets thornier because one of the workers, Frolov, is a man Aleshin already knows from an earlier case. The captain trusts him, yet senses he is hiding something and quietly tearing himself up over it. The deeper Aleshin digs, the tighter the ring of suspects pulls; then an inconvenient witness enters the picture, and someone clearly wants the truth buried.

It's a solid piece of early-1970s Soviet detective cinema, running on psychology, half-said things and small telling details rather than effects, with Igor Gorbachev and Nikolai Rybnikov in support. Good for viewers who like slow-burn investigations where the tension comes from people, not car chases. Stream A Circle (1972) online on iFILM.