Gangsters, superheroes, schoolkids, lovers, slaves, peasants, techies, Tenenbaums and freefalling astronauts – they’re all here in our countdown of cinema’s best movies since 2000
July 2019
Film foundation set up by Alexander Sokurov to close after claims of government hostility
The director of Russian Ark has accused Russia’s culture ministry of “unfriendliness and aggressiveness”
November 2016
Francofonia review – a wayward meditation on art, history and humanity
In this sophisticated but playful cine-prose poem, Alexander Sokurov does for the Louvre what he previously did for the Hermitage in Russian Ark
May 2012
Venice film festival slims down and goes 'sober'
Alberto Barbera, the festival's new director, has said he wants a 'less glitzy' event this year
Faust – review
Sokurov's study on the corrupting effects of power, which won the Golden Lion at Venice, is a ponderous affair, writes Philip French
Dark Shadows – review
Reel review
Faust - video review
Faust – review
November 2011
Aleksandr Sokurov: Delusions and grandeur
He is the great Russian director who once shot a whole film in a single take. Aleksandr Sokurov talks to Steve Rose about Soviet spies, fallen dictators – and how he got Putin to fund his latest work
August 2007
Mother and Son
Retail: A virtual dissertation on the human condition from Russian director Alexander Sokurov.
September 2005
Secrets of the emperor's bunker
JG Ballard applauds Alexander Sokurov's remarkable film portrait of Hirohito.
November 2003
Russian Ark
The cinema has been around so long that the idea of a unique film is hardly credible. But Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark has every right to the claim. It's a 96-minute film shot in one take and, almost as amazingly, it seems impossibly effortless.
Eyeless in Turin
Film: In Hollywood Ending, Woody Allen came up with the comic conceit of a blind movie director. For Russian auteur Alexander Sokurov, this idea is neither far-fetched nor funny.
The world's 40 best directors
The Hollywood blockbuster may be in crisis, but the art of the cinema is as healthy as ever. Our panel of critics picks out the film-makers who are leading the way.
April 2001
The last days of Lenin
A decade after the fall of the Soviet Union a new film is at last telling the truth about its founder's death. By Amelia Gentleman.
