Malcolm McDowell stars as a Soviet mental patient convinced he's the killer of two Tsars decades earlier.

THE ASSASSIN OF THE TSAR (TSAREUBIYTSA). From Karen Shakhnazarov, director of ZEROGRAD, ASSASSIN OF THE TSAR is a mysterious and labyrinthine psychological drama in which the tormented chambers of a patient's mind come to warp everything around him, even the folds of history itself. In one of his finest latter-day performances, Malcolm McDowell (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, TIME AFTER TIME) stars as Timofeyev, a severe schizophrenic in a dreary Soviet mental hospital who is convinced that, impossibly, he's the killer of two Tsars: Alexander II in 1881 and Nicholas II in 1918. The sympathetic head of the hospital, Dr. Smirnov (the great Russian actor Oleg Yankovskiy) is determined to cure Timofeyev of his madness - but instead finds himself literally pulled back through time, inhabiting the ghosts of the past as they march towards their tragic destiny. Shakhnazarov's fascinating, time-traveling mystery was filmed in two versions, shot simultaneously on separate 35mm negatives: the longer English-language version (104 min.) with McDowell's voice and a different score, and the slightly shorter Russian version (102 min.) with McDowell's voice dubbed and the rest of the cast speaking in Russian -- both versions included on this release. A Deaf Crocodile and Seagull Films release.

Media

Bonus Materials

• New restoration from the 35mm elements by Mosfilm
• Includes both English language and Russian language version of film with different edit and score
• New interview with star Malcolm McDowell
• New interview with director Karen Shakhnazarov
• New commentary track by film writer and historian Samm Deighan
• New essay by film critic and historian Walter Chaw
• Blu-ray authoring by David Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion.

 

Cast & Crew

Actors:

•       Malcolm McDowell
•       Oleg Yankovskiy
•       Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
•       Yuriy Sherstnyov
•       Anzhela Ptashuk
•       Viktor Seferov
•       Olga Antonova
•        Dariya Majorova
•       Evgeniya Kryukova
•       Alyona Teremizova
•       Anastasiya Nemolyaeva
•       Olga Borisova
•       Aleksey Logunov
•       Vyacheslav Mukhov
•       Denis Dmitriev
•       Vyacheslav Vdovin

Director: Karen Shakhnazarov

Additional Details

Label: Deaf Crocodile

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Language: English

Run Time: 104 mins

Region: 1

Release Date: 10/14/25

UPC: 850066568408