Andrei Rublev: 183 or 205 minutes for a first viewing?

We recommend the 183-minute cut for a first viewing. In its two-Blu-ray edition, Criterion identifies this as the director’s preferred cut and includes The Passion According to Andrei, the original 205-minute version.

These labels answer different questions: which version came first, and which cut the edition identifies as Tarkovsky’s preference. The longest version is therefore not automatically the one to start with.

Keep the 205-minute original as a later comparison. When choosing a copy, check the edition’s description for the named cut as well as its running time.

What to expect

Tarkovsky builds a historical world from weather, labour, cruelty, silence, and moral hesitation. Its episodic form makes artistic creation feel like something tested by experience rather than announced as genius.

How to ease in

Think in chapters, not plot points. Each episode places Rublev near a different use of power, belief, or craft; the connections accumulate slowly.

Heads-up

A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes graphic violence, torture, animal distress, sexual content, war, religious persecution, and long stretches of deliberate pacing.

Momo's Note Who is Momo? →

An icon painter crosses a violent medieval landscape while doubt interrupts both faith and artistic work.

I keep thinking about the labour around the art: mud, fire, metal, hands, and fear. The film lets creation emerge from a world that gives the artist no clean place to stand.

Open the note ↓

I keep thinking about the labour around the art: mud, fire, metal, hands, and fear. The film lets creation emerge from a world that gives the artist no clean place to stand.

— Momo

Where to go next

Want a gentler, shorter, or stranger next film? Ask Momo for something like this →
Momo is on shift. Visit Momo Cinema →

A contrasting watch Man with a Movie Camera → An artist’s spiritual doubt contrasted with cinema celebrating its own material machinery. 1929 · Soviet Union

Continue through the catalogue →