They Fought for Their Motherland — Russia
The 1975 Soviet epic, based on Mikhail Sholokhov's novel, follows a rifle regiment's last survivors fighting a desperate rearguard action on the Don River steppe during the German advance to Stalingrad in 1942.
The summer of 1942 saw German forces advance to the Don and Volga rivers in Operation Blue. Soviet units fell back under catastrophic pressure before Stalin's Order No. 227 — 'Not one step back' — issued in July 1942. Director Sergei Bondarchuk shot on location near Volgograd and cast prominent Soviet actors in this major state production.