(USSR—1968—directed by Sergei Bondarchuk)

Director/star/co-writer Sergei Bondarchuk’s Academy Award winning, unimaginably spectacular adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel remains to this day the most expensive motion picture ever made, costing $100,000,000 in 1960s dollars; multiply by nearly 7 for the equivalent cost today. Long before computer animation made it easier, Bondarchuk had to actually assemble 100,000 extras for the film’s jaw-dropping battles, including the awesome Battle of Borodino, a scene that the Chicago Tribune called “beyond question the cinema’s best and most elaborate battle sequence.” Originally cut by nearly an hour and dubbed for U.S. release, this subtitled and more complete version of War and Peace – as engaging on the human level as it is on the visual – runs nearly seven hours in all, and will be shown in two parts with a separate admission for each part. Parts I and II can be seen on separate days or together in a single marathon screening on Sunday.  (Part I, 3 hours and 51 min. plus intermission; Part II, 3 hours plus intermission)

“As spectacular as a movie can possibly be! You are never, ever going to see anything to equal it.” -Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times