"Rostelecom" and "LitRes" named the best domestic screen adaptations of the past five years.

      27 August 2025 15:48

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       Culture and Leisure

      To mark Russian Cinema Day, which is celebrated annually on August 27, Rostelecom, the book service LitRes and the recommendation service LiveLib conducted a study to find out which screen adaptation has received the most recognition from viewers and which upcoming premiere they are most looking forward to. More than 600 respondents took part in the survey, naming the best film adaptations of the past five years and the most anticipated new releases, and also sharing their preferences regarding reading and viewing.

      According to the survey, the most successful adaptation in recent years was Mikhail Lokshin’s film The Master and Margarita (18+) starring Evgeny Tsyganov and Yulia Snigir (26% of votes). In second place was Dmitry Dyachenko’s family film Cheburashka (6+) (17%) with Sergei Garmash and Polina Maksimova. The film is based on Eduard Uspensky’s cycle of children’s prose about Crocodile Gena and Cheburashka. In third place was the series Slovo patsana. Krov’ na asfal’te (18+) (16%) by Zhora Kryzhovnikov, released on the Wink.ru video service (a joint venture of Rostelecom and NMG), which is based on a book by Robert Garaev.

      Among screen adaptations scheduled for release in the next three years, respondents named Dmitry Tyurin’s series Hard to Be a God (16+) (26%) and Alexander Domogarov Jr.’s film The Hotel "At the Dead Mountaineer" (16+) (22%) after the novellas of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky as the most anticipated. Tyurin’s cast includes Fyodor Bondarchuk, Sergey Bezrukov and Nikita Kologriviy. Evgeny Tsyganov, Svetlana Khodchenkova and Sergey Makovetsky will star in Domogarov’s film. The third most anticipated premiere was the brothers Andreasyan’s picture Vovka in the Thrice-Ninth Kingdom (6+) (19%), based on a story by Vadim Korostylyov. The cast has not yet been announced.

      Ekaterina Pisareva, editor-in-chief of the LitRes group of companies: “Adaptations today are an excellent way to scale a book’s audience, draw attention to it and revive it in the memory of readers and viewers. For an adaptation to succeed, several elements are needed: excellent directing, a strong screenplay based on an iconic text, and well-known and talented actors. All of this is present in the film by Mikhail Lokshin, which made our top list, based on one of the most popular novels of the 20th century — The Master and Margarita. The costly and spectacular adaptation with first-tier actors immediately won the audience’s affection. And among the most anticipated film adaptations we see films based on the legendary Strugatsky brothers — an incredible number of their devotees will undoubtedly go to the cinema as soon as the adaptations are released, since it is a wonderful opportunity to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of a book reinterpreted by directors.”

      Alexander Ryakhovsky, director of the Prospective and Partner Products Office at Rostelecom: “Adaptations not only allow new generations to discover great literary works, but also help preserve the authors’ legacy. This is evidenced by the high demand both for watching the corresponding films on the Wink.ru video service and for reading the original literary sources on our Rostelecom Books service. The survey confirmed that modern audiences value adaptations of both iconic works and lesser-known books, such as the hit series Slovo patsana. Krov’ na asfal’te. We also see a growing interest in adaptations of Russian and world literary classics. No wonder Bulgakov’s character said: ‘Dostoevsky is immortal.’ It is notable that viewers perceive adaptations as independent works of art, not comparing them to the originals.”

      Respondents also identified which unadapted work they most hope to see on screen. The leader was Jerome David Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye (16+) (24%), which the author himself considered unfilmable. In second place was Alexander Radishchev’s “sentimental journey” A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow (12+) (17%), and third was Mariam Petrosyan’s phantasmagoric novel The House in Which... (12+) (16%), about the closed world of a boarding school for children with disabilities that operates under its own rules.

      Despite the growing popularity of adaptations, many users (45%) prefer to become familiar with the literary work first and then watch its film version. For almost the same number of respondents, the order does not matter (44%), while 10% like to start with the adaptation, which can spark interest in the literary original. Survey participants also answered which impresses them more — the original text or the adaptation: 38% said they are more often impressed by the literary source, 22% sided with the superiority of adaptations, but almost half (40%) could not choose and consider them independent works.

      Photo provided by PJSC Rostelecom.

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