Alchemist. Elixir of Faust (Season 1)

Alchemist: Elixir of Faust (2018) is a Russian detective series you can watch online on iFILM, spanning seven decades across two intercut storylines. Director Alexander Muratov opens in 1916: a British spy and covert Illuminati operative named Oswald Reiner kills a St. Petersburg professor and walks away with notes for the Elixir of Faust — a formula claimed to grant immortality.

Cut to 1983 in the Soviet Union. Chemist Andrei Nevelsky (Igor Petrenko) learns from his dying father that his grandfather's formula is genuine and complete. Three factions converge on it: Andrei himself, con-man Mark Terentyev (Pavel Barshak) who turns out to be Reiner's illegitimate son, and KGB officers racing to keep the terminally ill Andropov alive.

Svetlana Ivanova, Viktor Rakov, Evgenia Dobrovolskaya and Yulia Rutberg fill out the ensemble. The series blends spy thriller, detective procedural and occult mystery in a way that every answer cracks open two more questions. Stream Alchemist: Elixir of Faust online on iFILM.