Veronica and Boris are blissfully in love, but World War II erupts, Boris is sent to the front lines, and Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova) never hears from him again. She tries to accept the inevitable and ward off the advances of Boris’s draft-dodging cousin. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Mikhail Kalatozov’s (I Am Cuba) masterful The Cranes Are Flying is a superbly crafted drama with stunning cinematography. Samoilova’s rich, multi-dimensional performance, daring for 1957 USSR, turned out to be the breakout role for the Leningrad native.