Best Kazakhstani drama movies
A curated collection of popular drama movies from Kazakhstan.
The Legend of Tomiris (2019)
The Legend of Tomiris (2019)
This is the story of the life of the great queen of the steppe - legendary Tomiris. She is destined to become a skillful warrior, survive the loss of close people and unite the Scythian/Saka tribes under her authority.
The Kazbat Soldiers (2019)
The Kazbat Soldiers (2019)
A film about the feat of 17 soldiers of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan (now the National Guard), who died on April 7, 1995 on the Tajik-Afghan border while protecting the external borders of the CIS.
All That Really Matters (1992)
All That Really Matters (1992)
Poland's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1992
Shooter Homuchi (1997)
Shooter Homuchi (1997)
The love story of a Mongolian shooter and a Kazakh girl, the daughter of the governor Zakira, develops against the background of historical events of the time of Genghis Khan.
Strayed (2009)
Strayed (2009)
The main character, his wife and small son lose their way and become stuck on a country road. As a result, they have to spend the night in their car. The following morning, the main character awakens alone, his wife and son having mysteriously disappeared. His preliminary searches bring the hero to a small lonely house, in which an old man and a young woman live. It seems that these strange tenants know about him and his family but try to hide their knowledge. For what reason?
Taraz (2016)
Taraz (2016)
Once upon in a time in Taraz, a bunch of friends goes to night club and find themselves in a tricky situation after conflict with son of local mobster.
Alone (2017)
Alone (2017)
A young woman lives in a big weird and empty city. There is no other humans, no noise from the streets and no sounds of nature. The only one who shares her loneliness is her little daughter. They do everything together, draw, play and read fairy tales every night. But their perfect world drastically changes when they notice someone else’s presence.
Punishment After Death (1998)
Punishment After Death (1998)
A story about struggling writer who puts himself in a death row cell instead of the look alike criminal so he could finish his novel.
The Needle Remix (2010)
The Needle Remix (2010)
Remix of the 1988 cult movie "The Needle": Moro returns to Alma Ata to collect money owed to him. While waiting out an unexpected delay, he visits his former girlfriend Dina, and discovers she has become a morphine addict. He decides to help her kick the habit and to fight the local drug mafia responsible for her condition. But Moro finds a deadly opponent in "the doctor," the mafia kingpin who is exploiting Dina.
JETI (2024)
JETI (2024)
After Adil Denelgenov is fired, his life suddenly changes. Returning home, he finds a package from someone named Alen Smailov. Inside is a short movie, which shows strange frames with human body parts. Upon watching, Adil discovers that these parts are not random images and that he is on his way of solving this mystic message.
Dauren's Wedding (2024)
Dauren's Wedding (2024)
Seung-joo, an assistant documentary director, hopes to direct his own work, but leaves for Kazakhstan to assist in filming a traditional Korean-Kazakhstan wedding. When the local director Park Yu-ra gets in a car accident, Seung-joo and Young-tae, the cinematographer, miss the wedding they were set to film. To complete the documentary, Seung-joo is forced to stage a fake wedding ceremony in Yura's hometown of Saty Village with Young-tae and Yura's uncle Georgi.
Love Station (1993)
Love Station (1993)
A classic love triangle between classmates: rich kid and boy from poor background clash over beautiful sweetheart.
Dos-Mukasan (2022)
Dos-Mukasan (2022)
Any success story can never do without heavy falls, bitter partings and irresistibly difficult choices. But it’s not the ensemble’s success that makes the story insightful, but the difficult path that the guys had to go to achieve it. Concert bans, distrust of the party, problems with the institute, breath-taking popularity and, finally, the most difficult choice between science and art, will make the audience really worry about every step of the founders of Dos-Mukassan. A genuine, sincere friendship between the main characters of the story, which one day will be in jeopardy, will keep in suspense throughout the journey.
Dastur (2023)
Dastur (2023)
The father of the family, Nursultan Kopzhasarovich, respected in society, owns the entire farm in the village, so his only son Bolat grows up careless and spoiled, which more than once leads to problems and even criminal liability. At another drinking party, Bolat rapes a local school graduate. The father wanted to hush up the matter again, but the girl’s parents had already filed a statement with the police. The only way out of this situation is a wedding, but the life of the family turns into a real nightmare.
The Crying Steppe (2020)
The Crying Steppe (2020)
In the 1920-30s, 70% of the indigenous population died from the Great Famine created by the Bolsheviks in Kazakhstan. Overcoming the dreadful fear of death and despair, an eagle hunter's family from a Kazakh village in the highlands is trying to stay alive in the midst of the fierce winter and face a moral choice, to die as human beings or to survive at any cost, transgressing the human decency.
The Land Where Winds Stood Still (2023)
The Land Where Winds Stood Still (2023)
Windy steppes of Kazakhstan. Starving people ravenously eat donkeys and their weaker comrades. Frantic, raw, gripping, and cannibalistic western inspired by testimonies of the historical Great Famine of the 1930s. Ruthless Jupar with her two boys Jolan and Boshay runs for survival to reach her childhood village with hopes to find living relatives. A mother with no tears to cry endures rains, sandstorms, feverish famine, poisoned crops, hungry vultures, rotten meat, and greedy betrayals. Jupar will have to steal, cut throats, and protect her and others’ children to witness fates worse than death.
Cardiogram (1995)
Cardiogram (1995)
A 12-year-old boy from the isolated steppes in Kazakhstan has first encounter with the outside world when he is sent to a children's clinic with a treatable heart condition. It is here that he gets his first taste of the pain and pleasure of love when he falls for a kindly young nurse. His crush becomes a bit of an obsession, he spies on her frequently and experiences his first moments of sexual awakening. Also at the institution everyone speaks Russian and soon Jasulan will face exclusion in his own country.
Harmony Lessons (2013)
Harmony Lessons (2013)
During a medical examination, 13-year-old Aslan is humiliated in front of a load of his fellow pupils. The incident unleashes his latent personality disorder. Plagued by self-doubt, he strives for cleanliness and perfection and is obsessed with trying to control everything around him. His compulsion draws Aslan, who lives with his grandmother in a village in Kazakhstan, into increasingly difficult situations. He abhors the way most of his fellow pupils are held in the sway of a criminal scheme, in which Bolat, one of Aslan’s tormentors, is also involved. Bolat blackmails the younger children into paying him protection money; he has nothing but contempt for ostracised Aslan.
Kairat (1992)
Kairat (1992)
Living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, a young man is preparing to become a bus conductor. One day, in between wandering the city streets and going to the movies, he makes the acquaintance of a female student.
Fish broth (2018)
Fish broth (2018)
The film is about a brother and sister who struggle with life’s difficulties. Boys for the health of the mother do what they can. They do not choose the easy way and achieve everything honestly.
Tale of a Pink Hare (2010)
Tale of a Pink Hare (2010)
Provincial guy Yerlan is a 3rd—year student of one of the Almaty universities. He came to the city hoping to succeed in the future. However, the environment of the golden youth, where he got, turned out to be difficult. It has its own laws, its own rules, and in order to preserve its moral principles, many things will have to be relived and experienced.
The Rough River, the Placid Sea (2004)
The Rough River, the Placid Sea (2004)
A modern parable about three brothers whom life has divided as they each went their separate ways. Of their happy childhood and adolescent years together, only a black-and-white photograph remains, capturing the three young men at a table in front of their family home, and memories of the greenhouse that was their father's pride.
Little Brother (2013)
Little Brother (2013)
Yerken is nine years old and lives alone in a remote village in the mountains. When his older brother returns after a long absence, the young boy’s heart leaps with joy. But it doesn’t last long, his older brother has become a cold and heartless person… Serik Aprymov was born in 1960 in Kazakhstan and studied film at the Moscow Film School (VGIK). Along with other young directors from his country, he became part of the “new wave” of Kazakh cinema. At the Locarno Film Festival in 2004, he presented Okhotnik (The Hunter), in which a young boy suffers the contrast between the traditions of his people now on the decline and the progress of an increasingly urbanized new society.
1286 (2023)
Brother or Marriage? (2017)
Brother or Marriage? (2017)
Gaukhar has five overprotective brothers who don't let her marry anyone so she deals with the toughest decision in her life: family (brothers) or marriage?
Poet (2021)
Poet (2021)
Didar is a poet, but he cannot live from his poetry. He has to write early in the mornings before setting out for his day job as a newspaper editor. Didar is surrounded by a sense of crisis, not just because of his economic situation but also due to discussions at work about the diminishing significance of Kazakh culture, dying languages, and the worldwide dominance of English. He is questioning whether poetry is still relevant in today’s world, but finds solace in contemplating a rebellious 19th-century poet, Makhambet Otemisuly.
Racketeer 2 (2015)
Racketeer 2 (2015)
Sayan has survived the accident but 10 years later the past comes after him.
Brother or Marriage 3 (2024)
Brother or Marriage 3 (2024)
Gauhar gives birth to twins, but Aidar's doubts about fatherhood jeopardize their relationship.
Nagima (2013)
Nagima (2013)
Ugly, illiterate and an uncommunicative “graduate” of the city orphanage, Nagima is a young woman whose life offers little potential for success or even happiness. Nagima rents a tiny room on the outskirts of the city of Almaty with her fellow orphanage “graduate” the pregnant, and equally isolated, Anya. In the midst of giving birth to her child, tragedy strikes and Anya dies. Never knowing her mother, the newborn girl must be submitted to the orphanage and so Nagima sees the vicious cycle of life in repetitious action and becomes severely depressed at the cruelty of life.