Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot

Czar Ivan IV (Nikolai Cherkasov) is building a personal army to hold his throne, while the boyars, Russia's old noble families, gather in secret to plan his murder. Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya (Serafima Birman) leads the plot and pushes her son Vladimir (Pavel Kadochnikov) toward the crown. Eisenstein filmed it in 1946 under Stalin's order, and the film stayed banned for years afterward.