Ivan the Terrible, Part I

Ivan the Terrible, Part I is a Soviet historical drama from 1944, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, who also wrote and produced it. The film follows the early years of Ivan IV's reign as Tsar of all Russia. Crowned ruler, he sets out to unite the country and defend it against outside enemies, but finds himself surrounded by betrayal: the aristocracy, the boyars and even those closest to him work against his centralization of power. The story covers his marriage to Anastasia Romanovna, the campaign against the Khanate of Kazan, the death of the tsarina and the tsar's withdrawal from Moscow, from which he is recalled by the pleas of the people. Nikolai Cherkasov plays Ivan, with Lyudmila Tselikovskaya as Anastasia, Serafima Birman as Efrosinia Staritskaya, Mikhail Nazvanov as Prince Kurbsky, and Mikhail Zharov and Amvrosii Buchma among the tsar's guards. The credited cast numbers 22.

The film was made at Mosfilm and TsOKS, and runs 95 minutes. It was the fourth of five features Eisenstein directed, following Battleship Potemkin and Strike, both from 1925; the second part, Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot, followed later. On IMDb the film holds a critics' rating of 8.4 out of 10 from 17 reviews, while on TMDB it is rated 7.3 out of 10 from 236 votes.

It is the first entry in what was planned as a trilogy about Tsar Ivan IV. The second part was completed in 1946 but went unreleased for years, and the third was only in its earliest stages of shooting when production halted, leaving the series unfinished.