Burnt by the Sun 2 (Season 1)

Burnt by the Sun 2 (2011) is Nikita Mikhalkov's war drama, available to watch online on iFILM. This is the television cut of the sequel to his Oscar-winning 1994 film, and it once again centres on division commander Kotov.

Branded an enemy of the people in the 1930s and erased from public life, Kotov somehow survives and ends up at the front as a rank-and-file soldier in a penal battalion — a place where you plan no further than the next morning, and even that has to be earned. The mud, cold and hunger of the front line grind everyone down; what keeps Kotov upright is faith — in his country, in God, and in his daughter Nadya, still waiting for him to come home.

Mikhalkov plays Kotov himself and surrounds the role with a dense cast: Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Makovetsky, Evgeny Mironov, Sergei Garmash and Dmitry Dyuzhev. It is a sprawling, divisive, heavy piece — less about battles than about the price of a good name and of faith in wartime. Stream Burnt by the Sun 2 online on iFILM.