Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.
as Czar Ivan IV
as Czarina Anastasia Romanovna
as Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya
as Prince Andrei Kurbsky
as Czar's Guard Malyuta Skuratov
as Czar's Guard Aleksei Basmanov
as Fyodor Basmanov
as Vladimir Andreyevich Staritsky
as Boyar Fyodor Kolychev
as Novgorod's Archbishop Pimen
as Archdeacon
as Piotr Volynetz
as Nikola, Simpleton Beggar
as Kaspar von Oldenbock, Livonian Ambassador
as The Stranger
as Sigismond, King of Poland
as Smiling Woman in the Church (uncredited)
as (uncredited)
as Sigismond's court lady
as Boyar
as Archbishop
