Retrospective Andrei Tarkovsky: Andrei Rublev

Widely regarded as Andrei Tarkovsky's finest film, charts the life of the great icon painter through a turbulent period of 15th-century Russian history which was marked by endless fighting between rival Princes and Tatar invasions.

Made on an epic scale, it does not flinch from portraying the savagery of the time, from which, almost inexplicably, the serenity of Rublev’s art arose. The great set pieces—the sack of Vladimir, the casting of the bell, the pagan ceremonies of St. John’s Night and the Russian crucifixion—are tours-de-force of visceral filmmaking.

Andrei Rublev, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union 1966, 183 mins, English subtitles