In a Russian coastal town, Kolya is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Kolya and his family.
Ratings
Curator score: 9.0/10
IMDb: 7.6/10
Letterboxd: 4.03/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
Metacritic: 92
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Andrey Zvyagintsev
Production
Non-Stop Productions
Cast
Aleksey Serebryakov, Elena Lyadova, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Roman Madyanov, Anna Ukolova, Aleksey Rozin, Sergey Pokhodaev, Platon Kamenev, Sergey Bachurskiy, Valeriy Grishko, Alla Emintseva, Margarita Shubina, Dmitriy Bykovskiy-Romashov, Sergey Borisov, Igor Savochkin, Igor Sergeev, Konstantin Telegin, Olga Lapshina, Mariya Shekunova, Irina Ryndina
Where to watch
Klassiki
Curator Review
Verdict
A bleak, beautifully composed Russian tragedy about corruption, power, and private collapse. It’s slow, severe, and emotionally punishing, but the film’s moral force, visual precision, and darkly ironic streak make it a standout for viewers who like serious cinema with bite.
Best for
Viewers drawn to political and institutional corruption dramas
Fans of cold, austere, visually controlled filmmaking
People who appreciate tragic family stories with social critique
Audiences comfortable with slow-burn, emotionally heavy films
Skip if
You want a hopeful or uplifting ending
You dislike deliberate pacing and long, contemplative scenes
You prefer plot-driven thrillers over atmosphere and allegory
You’re not in the mood for bleak domestic despair
Overview
Leviathan is a devastating portrait of a man crushed by a system that is corrupt at every level, from local government to family life to the church. What makes it so effective is its refusal to soften the blow: the film is patient, observant, and brutally unsentimental, yet it still finds room for bitter humor and moments of human fragility.
Worth noting
The coastal setting is rendered with striking severity, and the cinematography turns the landscape into a moral force of its own. Every frame feels weighed down by weather, bureaucracy, and fate, as if the world itself is conspiring against the characters.
Bottom line
This is not an easy watch, but it is a powerful one. For viewers who admire rigorous filmmaking and social tragedy with symbolic depth, it lands with real force and lingers long after it ends.
Top Letterboxd reviews
DirkH (5★) · 880 likes
One of the sincerest films I've ever seen, a quality earning it an immediate spot amongst my favourite films of all time.
Leviathan is a bleak condemnation of orthodox religion, the pettiness of self gain and the corruptive nature of power. It is a film that tells its story with an unrelenting and startling sincerity, something I greatly admire in any film, but done to the quality it is done here, it left me angry, melancholic, empty, moved and above… more
Framesofnick (5★) · 444 likes
I’ve honestly never seen a movie with acting that doesn’t feel like acting. It’s like this movie just found a drunk chaotic family with issues and started recording all of their issues. It feels so insanely authentic to the point where you wanna cry just looking at them drown out their problems in any way they can
reibureibu (5★) · 317 likes
"All power is from God. Where there's power, there's might."
God is great. God is good. But in our earthly realm often God is simply power, the entwinement of church and state making this a reality we stare at everyday.
But how does it come to this? This blatant corruption of religion and government through the covetous vultures that circle above? The same vultures who perch atop the hierarchical ladder which allow us illusory dreams of climbing it ourselves but… more
Eli Hayes (5★) · 245 likes
Some of the most beautiful cinematography of all-time...
Jonathan White (5★) · 200 likes
TIFF 2014 film #12
Reason for pick: Director Andrey Zvyagintsev, Elena
As my friends know, I usually go completely blind into films, especially at TIFF. My lovely wife does the hard work of picking based on our ( almost universally ) shared taste. Thus, I usually don’t go in with much anticipation. Leviathan was an exception. When I found out that it was on this year’s roster I was positively giddy. We had just watched Zvyagintsev’s Elena a few weeks… more
2007 · Crime, Thriller, Western · 2h 2m · R · Curator 9.6/10 (3.1M ratings) · Where to watch: fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, MGM Plus, Philo
For its fatalism, spare tension, and the feeling that human beings are outmatched by a harsher, indifferent world.
2003 · Crime, Drama, Thriller · 2h 58m · R · Curator 8.2/10 (356.7K ratings) · Where to watch: MUBI
A harsh allegory about power, exploitation, and moral collapse, stripped down to expose human ugliness.
Topics
Russian drama, political corruption, slow burn, bleak tone, social realism, family tragedy, institutional critique, art-house cinema, coastal setting, moral allegory