A scientist builds a time machine and accidentally sends his apartment complex manager and a petty burglar to 16th century Moscow, while Tsar Ivan the Terrible travels to 1973.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.8/10
IMDb: 8.2/10
TMDB: 7.9/10
Director
Leonid Gaidai
Production
Mosfilm
Cast
Aleksandr Demyanenko, Yuriy Yakovlev, Leonid Kuravlyov, Savely Kramarov, Natalya Seleznyova, Natalya Krachkovskaya, Natalya Kustinskaya, Vladimir Etush, Mikhail Pugovkin, Sergei Filippov, Eduard Bredun, Aleksandr Vigdorov, Valentin Grachyov, Natalya Gurzo, Ivan Zhevago, Anatoliy Kalabulin, Nina Maslova, Anatoliy Podshivalov, Viktor Uralsky, Viktor Shulgin
Curator Review
Verdict
A wildly inventive Soviet time-travel farce that mixes historical parody, bureaucratic satire, and broad physical comedy with real pop-culture staying power. Even if some jokes land best with cultural context, the film’s energy, performances, and premise make it an easy recommendation.
Best for
fans of time-travel comedies
viewers who like absurdist satire
people interested in classic Soviet cinema
audiences who enjoy fast, theatrical ensemble comedy
fans of films with a strong cult reputation
Skip if
you want subtle or low-key humor
you dislike broad farce and mistaken-identity plots
you need every joke to translate cleanly across cultures
you prefer modern pacing and effects over stagey 1970s comedy
Overview
Leonid Gaidai turns a high-concept time-travel premise into a brisk, delirious comedy of errors. The joke is simple and durable: a bureaucrat, a burglar, and Ivan the Terrible are all forced to survive each other’s eras, and the film keeps finding new ways to make that collision funny.
Worth noting
What gives it staying power is how confidently it moves between slapstick, social satire, and character comedy. The performances are broad but precise, and the film’s rhythm is so assured that even scenes built on chaos feel carefully engineered.
Bottom line
Some of the humor is rooted in Soviet-era speech, manners, and institutions, so not every line will hit equally for non-Russian speakers. But the movie’s visual invention, musicality, and sheer comic momentum make it easy to enjoy as a piece of popular cinema, even when the cultural specifics are partly opaque.
Top Letterboxd reviews
nastya (5★) · 395 likes
lepotaaaa
Fiona (4★) · 357 likes
i can't believe the soviets literally invented comedy
soop (4★) · 346 likes
"what's up, comrades?" - george miloslavsky to 1500s boyars
Michael Woods (Gingernut) (4★) · 245 likes
The U.S may have beaten the Russians to the moon.
But Russia did 'Back to the Future' first.
юля фэй (5★) · 241 likes
не могу поверить что мы учредили отдельный праздник чтобы всей страной смотреть этот фильм каждый год
2007 · Science Fiction, Drama · 1h 27m · NR · Curator 7.5/10 (362.4K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Fandor, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A very different time-and-history conversation piece, but similarly built on the comic or dramatic shock of historical perspective.
1970 · Comedy, Drama, War · 2h 19m · PG-13 · Curator 5.9/10 (6.2K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A community comedy with a lively ensemble and a similar affection for public chaos under pressure.