Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy

Acting

Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy

Born — Died

1925-03-28 — 1994-08-03

Place of birth

USSR

Known for

Acting

Credits

73 titles

Innokentiy Smotkunovkiy (born 28 March 1925 – 3 August 1994) was a Soviet film and stage actor. Served during World War II. An acclaimed performer, his portrayal of Hamlet in a 1964 film won him praise overseas, including a BAFTA nomination. One of Smotkunovkiy's best known roles among wider audiences was in a popular Soviet crime comedy Beware of the Car, a satire where he portrayed a thief who stole cars from criminals to donate the money from car sales to orphanages. Other notable roles include dramatizations of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot in Bolshoi Drama Theater (1957) and Tolstoy's Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich in Maly Theatre (1973). Awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1974.

Known for

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson poster
7.8

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is a series of five films produced by Lenfilm for the Soviet Central Television, split into eleven episodes, starring Vasily Livanov as Sherlock Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Dr. Watson. They were directed by Igor Maslennikov and filmed in Russia (the then Soviet Union) between 1979 and 1986, and the series was one of the most successful in the history of Russian television.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson

1980

Mirror poster
7.9

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Mirror

1975

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears poster
7.5

Living together in a workers' dorm, Katerina and her friends are determined to make it in Moscow. But when a boorish cameraman forces himself on her, Katerina finds herself pregnant and alone as her friends move on. Twenty years later, Katerina is a factory director, outpacing her old roommates career-wise, yet still alone but for her daughter. Love seems possible again when she meets a genial mechanic.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

1980

Legends of Cinema poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Legends of Cinema

2016

Memories of Sherlock Holmes poster
7.1

Detective television series based on the works of Arthur Conan Doyle. Five films about Sherlock Holmes, shot by Igor Maslennikov earlier, were remounted in 2000, a connecting story about Conan Doyle's literary secretary, Mr. Wood, who is preparing an anniversary collection of stories about Holmes for the beginning of the coming XX century. Sir Arthur receives huge mail every day, addressed not to him, but to Sherlock Holmes. And then one day a letter arrives with a plea for help, and Doyle begins an investigation...

Memories of Sherlock Holmes

2000

Dead Souls poster
8.0

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov plans to buy the titles to “dead souls” and use them as collateral to obtain a large loan. He comes to a small provincial town and begins to proposition the local landowners. These landowners are revealed to be so petty and avaricious that not even Chichikov’s amazing offer can be worked to his advantage on them. Some stall, some refuse for no obvious reasons, some promise and then renege, and others want “in on the deal.” In the end, Chichikov, having concluded that the landowners are a hopeless lot, leaves for other regions.

Dead Souls

1984

Film credits

1990s · 7 titles

1980s · 20 titles

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears poster
7.5

Living together in a workers' dorm, Katerina and her friends are determined to make it in Moscow. But when a boorish cameraman forces himself on her, Katerina finds herself pregnant and alone as her friends move on. Twenty years later, Katerina is a factory director, outpacing her old roommates career-wise, yet still alone but for her daughter. Love seems possible again when she meets a genial mechanic.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

1980

Late love poster
8.0

About fidelity and cunning, about purity of human feelings and belief in true happiness.

Late love

1983

Restricted Area poster
NR

Central Russia. The deputy chairman of the district executive committee, Tretyakova, was instructed to organize work to eliminate the consequences of a tornado that suddenly hit the village. She has to come to terms with the indifference of summer residents from a neighboring village, untouched by the disaster. Relying on her own experience and the will of the victims, Tretyakova will do her best...

Restricted Area

1988

Dark Eyes poster
6.7

Aboard a ship early in the 20th-century, a middle-aged Italian tells his story of love to a Russian.

Dark Eyes

1987

Sherlock Holmes in the 20th Century poster
7.1

This film version was released before the premiere of the full two-part television version (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Twentieth Century Approaches). In this version the entire plot of the story Bruce-Partington Drawings was deleted.

Sherlock Holmes in the 20th Century

1987

To Be Hamlet poster
NR

Documentary examination of the role of Hamlet, in which ten prominent actors who have played the part discuss Hamlet's personality, Shakespeare's play, and the enduring popular fascination it has inspired. The actors interviewed are Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Richard Burton, Nicol Williamson, Ben Kingsley, Jean Louis Barrault, Vittorio Gassman, Maximilian Schell, Innocenti Smoktunovsky, and Mandy Patinkin. Includes excerpts from various film and television versions of Hamlet, featuring these actors and others.

To Be Hamlet

1985

Born by the Storm poster
8.0

Ukraine, 1918. Underground worker Sigismund Raevsky organizes a Komsomol cell and gathers young people to fight against the German invaders...

Born by the Storm

1981

Dead Souls poster
6.2

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov plans to buy the titles to “dead souls” and use them as collateral to obtain a large loan. He comes to a small provincial town and begins to proposition the local landowners. These landowners are revealed to be so petty and avaricious that not even Chichikov’s amazing offer can be worked to his advantage on them. Some stall, some refuse for no obvious reasons, some promise and then renege, and others want “in on the deal.” In the end, Chichikov, having concluded that the landowners are a hopeless lot, leaves for other regions.

Dead Souls

1984

Talking Hands of Travancore poster
9.0

Many centuries ago, on the southwest coast of India, in Travancore, the art of kathakali dance arose, the most important place in which gestures occupy.

Talking Hands of Travancore

1981

Phenomenon poster
4.8

One soviet programmer has problems in his job. He is laughed at by women, they think he is too awkward. His chiefs are giving no rest to him. In addition to that they give him very difficult project to be done very soon. Overcoming himself he does impossible. After closing away in his office and spending there several days and nights without sleep he finds some solution and immediately fells asleep. After waking up after very surrealistic dream he surprises of what has happened while he was asleep. And the miracles have just started for him…

Phenomenon

1983

Khalif the Stork poster
7.1

A rich caliph is leading a careless life. One day an evil wizard sells him a magic potion that can turn human into any animal he wants. The only condition: one mustn't laugh.

Khalif the Stork

1981

Naval Cadets, Charge! poster
6.9

Three naval cadets accidentally get possession of a secret diary that was stolen from Bestuzhev, a vice-chancellor of Russia. If this diary ever gets abroad, the consequences for the country would be grave. The cadets are trying to return the papers to their owner, but there are others who want to get the papers...

Naval Cadets, Charge!

1988

The Queen of Spades poster
6.1

Hermann is an officer of the engineers in the Imperial Russian Army. He constantly watches the other officers gamble, but never plays himself. One night, Tomsky tells a story about his grandmother, an elderly countess. Many years ago, in France, she lost a fortune at cards, and then won it back with the secret of the three winning cards, which she learned from the notorious Count of St. Germain. Hermann becomes obsessed with obtaining the secret.

The Queen of Spades

1982

Primary Russia poster
5.2

The film takes place in pre-Christian Russia, when Ratibor united the East Slavs into one army against the nomadic Khazars.

Primary Russia

1986

Theft poster
6.0

Theft takes place in Washington, DC. Howard Knox is a well-intentioned Congressman crusading for reform. He is scheduled to make a speech in which he will expose the corrupt activities of an industrial magnate and his congressional stooges. The wealthy capitalist in question, Anthony Starkweather, along with his son-in-law and political puppet, Senator Thomas Chalmers, will do everything in their power to foil Knox's great speech and publicly disgrace him. To complicate matters, Margaret Chalmers, wife of Senator Chalmers and daughter of Starkweather, forms a friendship with Knox and begins to sympathize with his cause.

Theft

1982

Without Sun poster
9.0

“Without the Sun” is the first name that Gorky himself gave to his play and which most closely matches its essence. For this work is not about the "day" and its people, but about the indestructible, passionate desire of people from darkness to light, to the sun. "

Without Sun

1987

Mysterious Heir poster
NR

The young artist Burtsev goes to Paris about the inheritance left to him by his uncle, who left for France with the first wave of emigrants. There, he is expected by the hostility of some persons interested in the inheritance, and the open sympathies of others - the old man Yerikhonov and his daughter Asya, who fell in love with Burtsev.

Mysterious Heir

1987

Heart Is Not a Stone poster
7.5

According to the play of the same name of A. N. Ostrovsky. The merchants already possess the big equities. Money "runs the show". The world of feelings and hearts is degraded.

Heart Is Not a Stone

1989

The Idiot poster
NR

This film-concert is a ballet based on the novel "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky, set to the music of Symphony No. 6 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and featuring artists from the State Theatre of Modern Ballet.

The Idiot

1987

Big Boy poster
8.5

Follows the famous Oryol trotter, multiple champion of the beginning of the century. Then - in sharp battles on the tracks of hippodromes - the fate of domestic horse breeding was decided. The world of animals and people is shown through the perception of a horse named Big Boy.

Big Boy

1982

1970s · 22 titles

Mirror poster
7.9

A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.

Mirror

1975

They Fought for Their Motherland poster
6.9

In July 1942, in the Second World War, the rearguard of the Russian army protects the bridgehead of the Don River against the German army while the retreating Russian troops cross the bridge. While they move back to the Russian territory through the countryside, the soldiers show their companionship, sentiments, fears and heroism to defend their motherland.

They Fought for Their Motherland

1975

Tchaikovsky poster
5.2

The film is dedicated to the great Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). It tells of the last twenty years of the great master’s life, of his friendship with Baroness von Meck, an outstanding woman of her time, who for many years was Tchaikovsky’s guardian angel. The film also includes retrospections of the composer’s childhood and adolescent years, with Tchaikovsky’s life poetically recounted against the background of fragments from his operas and ballets performed by the best Russian musicians.

Tchaikovsky

1970

Moscow-Cassiopeia poster
6.4

Several children go on a lifelong space mission to Cassiopeia because they don't want to go to school.

Moscow-Cassiopeia

1974

Gold poster
9.0

Mashenka, a young typist during WWII, flees her occupied town with her boss, the senior cashier of a bank,along with a sack of jewelry and gold they hope to deliver to the Red Army.

Gold

1970

Bells of Autumn poster
3.8

A musical fairytale based on the poem "The Tale of the Dead Princess" by Alexander Pushkin.

Bells of Autumn

1979

Romance for Lovers poster
5.2

A Marine's presumed death leads his fiancée to marry another, only for him to return, leading to a tragic, symbolic end for him despite his physical survival.

Romance for Lovers

1974

Teens in the Universe poster
6.1

Interstellar expedition equipped by "pioneers"(soviet scouts) reaches Alpha Kassiopea and finds that smart robots took control of whole planet. Their only goal - to make happy, as they understand, their masters. Happiness was, actually, satisfactions of primitive needs, and removing "disturbing" emotions like love, responsibility etc. A many years ago they succeeded in reaching this goal and all the people died out. A very few people escaped from "total happiness" and their descendants orbiting the planet in a big orbital station for many generations. Brave soviet pioneers land on a planet, destroy the robots and return it to the people

Teens in the Universe

1975

Taming of the Fire poster
5.4

About Russian space program and missile industry, and it's founder Sergei P. Korolev, from the 1920s to the first man in space in 1961.

Taming of the Fire

1972

Crime and Punishment poster
6.0

Former student Raskolnikov is pushed to murder when struggling to pay the rent on his apartment. When the murder is being investigated by the police, Raskolnikov struggles between trying to hide his guilt and the pressure to confess.

Crime and Punishment

1970

Caesar and Cleopatra poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Caesar and Cleopatra

1979

Uncle Vanya poster
6.7

Retired professor Serebryakov and his young wife Yeléna disrupt the lives of his brother-in-law Vanya and daughter Sofya on a rural estate, leading to a crisis of unrequited love, resentment, and disillusionment.

Uncle Vanya

1970

The Legend of Thyl poster
5.8

Based on the novel by Charles de Coster "The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak, and their Adventures Heroical, Joyous and Glorious in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere." First part: "The Ashes of Claes". XVI century. The freedom-loving and cheerful people of the Netherlands under the rule of the Spanish king: persecution, torture, bonfires of the Inquisition, encouraging scammers. The fearless Thyl Uhlenshpiegel and his faithful girlfriend Nele have to go through many trials. Second part: "Viva Beggars!". The people of the Netherlands, tormented by cruel royal decrees, taxes, heresy, torture and executions, began a war of liberation against Spanish rule. Many feats will be performed by the national hero Tilbert (Thyl) Ulenspiegel and his friend Lamme Gudzak before peace returns to their homeland.

The Legend of Thyl

1977

The Heron and the Crane poster
6.7

Animated short about a love between a heron and a crane.

The Heron and the Crane

1974

The Princess and the Pea poster
5.2

In one of the realms, there was time for the prince to get married, but the bride would have to be a real princess. A sign was put up on the gates: “ A Princess Wanted”. But in response to it there appeared only a small girl, wet to the bones after the rain and bearing no resemblance to nobility. So the prince was obliged to venture off to other lands in search of a suitable match. Henceforth the prince’s adventures unfold. In one kingdom, he met a fat king, in another – a hospitable king. He also visited the kingdom of arts. He saw enough princesses, beautiful and clever. And yet, the real princess, the only one he longed for, proved to be the girl who had knocked at their door during a rainstorm…

The Princess and the Pea

1976

The Steppe poster
5.7

A boy in Russia, circa 1900, makes a daunting trip from his home village to a school in the city.

The Steppe

1978

Choice of Purpose poster
8.0

A story of Igor Kurchatov - a father of Soviet nuclear weapons.

Choice of Purpose

1975

Ilf and Petrov Rode in the Tram poster
5.0

The film tells about the life of the Soviet country in the 30s of the twentieth century, based on the feuilletons and notebooks of famous writers Ilya Ilf and Eugene Petrov…

Ilf and Petrov Rode in the Tram

1972

Trust poster
3.8

In December 1917, a Finnish delegation arrives in St. Petersburg to meet Vladimir Lenin to seek recognition of Finland's independence.

Trust

1976

Velvet Season poster
7.0

In the fall of 1938, three former fighters of the international brigade — russian Shukhov, frenchman Henri and american Liz — fall into a resort town on the border of Spain and France. Having met a nurse who is supposed to send Spanish children to Corsica, they decide to help her. However, a fascist rebellion suddenly breaks out in the city, and the children are held hostage to criminals.

Velvet Season

1978

Daughters-Mothers poster
4.3

The young girl Olga Vasilyeva grew up in an orphanage. She never knew her mother and wants to find her. The only trace she has is a preserved letter from her mother from her personal file, which she managed to get from the administration of the orphanage. For a short vacation at her factory school, she travels from Sverdlovsk to Moscow following the unreliable traces of this letter. Yelena Alekseyevna — the woman she finds when she arrives at the address turns out to be a teacher in a ballet school, the wife of an ordinary senior teacher at the Moscow Technical Institute (who didn't defend his dissertation and is complacent about this) and an old-Moscow intellectual. She kindly meets her, but she is not the person Olga is looking for, she only has the same last name and first name and consonant middle name. She is kind and hospitable, ready to help the girl find her real mother and offers Olga to visit her house during a short stay in Moscow.

Daughters-Mothers

1975

Enemies poster
10.0

Drama based on the play of the same name by Maxim Gorky.

Enemies

1978

1960s · 7 titles

Letter Never Sent poster
7.2

Four geologists are searching for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia. After a long and tiresome journey they manage to find their luck and put the diamond mine on the map. The map must be delivered back to Moscow. But on the day of their departure a terrible forest fire wreaks havoc, and the geologists get trapped in the woods.

Letter Never Sent

1960

Beware of the Car! poster
7.5

An insurance agent who moonlights as a car thief steals cars various crooks and never from the common people. He sells the stolen cars and gives the money to charity. His best friend, a cop, is assigned to bring in this modern Robin Hood.

Beware of the Car!

1966

Hamlet poster
7.2

Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations.

Hamlet

1964

Nine Days of One Year poster
6.8

Set in the Soviet scientific community, the story follows two dedicated physicists whose close friendship unfolds amid dangerous nuclear research, shaped by their shared affection for a strong-willed woman. Radiation exposure, scientific ambition, and romantic rivalries intersect as the characters confront the physical risks of their work and the personal consequences of their choices.

Nine Days of One Year

1962

The Little Prince poster
5.6

After a pilot is forced to make an emergency landing in the Sahara Desert, he befriends a young prince from outer space; the friendship conjures up stories of journeys through the solar system for the stranded aviator.

The Little Prince

1966

A Leap Year poster
10.0

On the streets of the regional city, a cheerful holiday bustle reigns. The apartment of the Kupriyanovs is also noisy — friends of their youngest daughter Yulka are preparing for the New Year. The old driver Leonid Kupriyanov will not have to celebrate the holiday with his family, he should go on the next trip. Preparing for the New Year, none of the heroes imagined what dramatic events would fall on them, how difficult and unexpectedly the destinies of three families would intertwine, how difficult it would be to recover from their experiences ...

A Leap Year

1961

The Living Corpse poster
5.0

According to Fyodor Protasov, the surrounding life is riddled with dirt and falsehood. He does not want to participate "in all this dirty trick", he does not have the courage to fight it, and he chooses the third way — to stage suicide.

The Living Corpse

1969

Series credits

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson poster
7.8

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson is a series of five films produced by Lenfilm for the Soviet Central Television, split into eleven episodes, starring Vasily Livanov as Sherlock Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Dr. Watson. They were directed by Igor Maslennikov and filmed in Russia (the then Soviet Union) between 1979 and 1986, and the series was one of the most successful in the history of Russian television.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson

1980

Legends of Cinema poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Legends of Cinema

2016

Memories of Sherlock Holmes poster
7.1

Detective television series based on the works of Arthur Conan Doyle. Five films about Sherlock Holmes, shot by Igor Maslennikov earlier, were remounted in 2000, a connecting story about Conan Doyle's literary secretary, Mr. Wood, who is preparing an anniversary collection of stories about Holmes for the beginning of the coming XX century. Sir Arthur receives huge mail every day, addressed not to him, but to Sherlock Holmes. And then one day a letter arrives with a plea for help, and Doyle begins an investigation...

Memories of Sherlock Holmes

2000

Dead Souls poster
8.0

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov plans to buy the titles to “dead souls” and use them as collateral to obtain a large loan. He comes to a small provincial town and begins to proposition the local landowners. These landowners are revealed to be so petty and avaricious that not even Chichikov’s amazing offer can be worked to his advantage on them. Some stall, some refuse for no obvious reasons, some promise and then renege, and others want “in on the deal.” In the end, Chichikov, having concluded that the landowners are a hopeless lot, leaves for other regions.

Dead Souls

1984

Naval Cadets, Charge! poster
7.6

Three naval cadets accidentally get possession of a secret diary that was stolen from Bestuzhev, a vice-chancellor of Russia. If this diary ever gets abroad, the consequences for the country would be grave. The cadets are trying to return the papers to their owner, but there are others who want to get the papers...

Naval Cadets, Charge!

1988

Little Tragedies poster
6.0

Based on Pushkin's "Little Tragedies" ("The Miserly Knight", "Mozart and Salieri", "The Stone Guest", "A Feast in the Time of Plague").

Little Tragedies

1980

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The twentieth century begins poster
7.8

The fifth and final part of the cycle of Soviet television feature films, filmed by director Igor Maslennikov based on the stories of the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle about the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. In the first part based on the works - "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb", "The Adventure of the Second Stain". In the second part based on the works - "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans", and "His Last Bow".

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The twentieth century begins

1988

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The twentieth century begins poster
7.8

The fifth and final part of the cycle of Soviet television feature films, filmed by director Igor Maslennikov based on the stories of the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle about the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. In the first part based on the works - "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb", "The Adventure of the Second Stain". In the second part based on the works - "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans", and "His Last Bow".

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The twentieth century begins

1988

The Case of Sukhovo-Kobylin poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

The Case of Sukhovo-Kobylin

1991

Children of the Sun poster
NR

The family of Russian intellectuals during the first Russian revolution is faced with a "cholera riot". One of the characters commits suicide, another goes mad, the third suffers from unrequited love.

Children of the Sun

1985

Dandelion Wine poster
6.3

Summer. Heat. A garden full of dandelions. They are picked and used to make excellent wine... A brilliant inventor creates a happiness machine... An experienced colonel transports boys into a world unknown to them with his stories, or he himself travels in the time machine of his memory.

Dandelion Wine

1998

The Days of Surgeon Mishkin poster
NR

A story about a good doctor - surgeon Mishkin who works in a countryside hospital.

The Days of Surgeon Mishkin

1977

Behind the camera