Come and See

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Come and See

1987

2h 22m

Drama

War

Mystery & Thriller

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Watchlist

Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

90%

Tomatometer

60 Reviews

95%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

The invasion of a village in Byelorussia by German forces sends young Florya (Aleksey Kravchenko) into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha (Olga Mironova), who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.

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Critics Consensus

As effectively anti-war as movies can be, Come and See is a harrowing odyssey through the worst that humanity is capable of, directed with bravura intensity by Elem Klimov.

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Mark Le Fanu

Sight & Sound

03/15/2023

The movie is terrible and pitiable. Klimov manages, as I say, to convey the authentic relentlessness of nightmare.

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David Denby

New York Magazine/Vulture

03/14/2023

The movie is a succession of brutally sincere "art" assaults, jammed together like the poorly articulated cars of an old freight train.

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Derek Malcolm

Guardian

03/14/2023

This is filmmaking of enormous power and feeling even if the film's length mitigates against it.

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Daniel Barnes

Dare Daniel

Oct 30

5/5

An emotionally shattering waking nightmare of war.

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Julian Singleton

Cinapse

Jul 12

It was a punishing experience watching Come and See, but that does not mean it’s an unforgiving one. It is a film I may not ever watch again, but it is one I’m ultimately grateful for and one I doubt I will ever forget.

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Lisa Laman

Culturess

06/16/2025

Come and See is a nightmare. It’s a rare film, along with select company like Lost Highway, unnervingly accurate in mimicking the powerlessness and ceaseless torment of the worst nighttime experiences.

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Aidan P.

@Aidanjp Jun 20

Not for me, I guess. To show the horrors of war, you often have to drag audiences through an extended horrific ordeal, as Come and See does, and I was OK with that, as well as the cinematography capturing the squalid conditions of an occupied frontier. But the weird acting and directing (people laughing for insanely long times at very stupid things) took me out of it. Sometimes the director seemed to be trying too hard to force symbolism into a scene when the reality would have been sufficient.

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Adam T

@Adamdl525 Jun 17

BY FAR the best most horrific depiction of war I have ever seen. It makes saving private ryan look like a comedy. Absolutely amazing depiction of what war really is and should be a mandatory watch for students in high school.

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Stefan J.

@sjafari May 13

A film that pulls no punches on the immense brutality of war. Florya begins this story as an innocent boy who is somewhat mesmerized by what he views as the theatrics of war, but as the long, close-up shots show the physical and emotional deterioration of his mind, body, and soul, he turns into a man trauma-ridden by the same ideas that enamored him not long ago.

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Alexander C.

@ThisChapAlex Apr 17

Beautiful, I wish everyone was required to watch this.

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Leonardo M

@leosblinds Feb 14

I was SPEECHLESS! Greatest war movie ever made.

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David G

@DavidGarvin Jan 28

Come and See is less "War Movie" and more "Horror Movie". And not a hack and slash type, but rather one of those rare horrific films that grabs you by the neck. The horrific part of the scenes depicted in the film are that much worse knowing that such atrocities did happen. This film, made some 40 years after the end of the war, shows just how deeply scarred the USSR was by the war against Germany. One could argue that those scars still exist.

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Elem Klimov

Director

Aleksey Kravchenko

Florya Gaishun

Olga Mironova

Glasha

Liubomiras Laucevicius

Kosach

Vladas Bagdonas

Rubezh

Evgeny Tilicheev

Gezhel

Jason Hall’s Five Favorite Military Films

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Synopsis

The invasion of a village in Byelorussia by German forces sends young Florya (Aleksey Kravchenko) into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha (Olga Mironova), who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.

Director: Elem Klimov
Screenwriter: Ales Adamovich, Elem Klimov
Distributor: International Film Exchange
Production Co: Mosfilm, Belarusfilm
Genre: Drama, War, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: Belarusian
Release Date (Theaters): Feb 6, 1987, Limited
Rerelease Date (Theaters): Feb 2, 2001
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 28, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $70.8K
Runtime: 2h 22m
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.66:1)