Clearly a propaganda film against Germany, Teutonic Knights stands for the Nazis in this jingoistic portrayal. But Eisenstein doesn't simply make a propaganda film, he revolutionized cinema through another propaganda film Battleship Potemkin but here there were co-directors and writers who specifically tried to keep him from going experimental and give a proper narrative. That may have affected a bit negatively but still, he made one of the most epic war films that have only aged a little by now. The cinematography and background score is absolutely terrific. The score and many of the sequences have been copied throughout the history of films where many of them have been hailed later as classics. Aside from the technical side even though the story and the characters are plain the film always pushed the propaganda to its margins. For a propaganda film, the amount of brutality of war and human suffering showed is quite much. The inclusion of all kinds of people in war, their bravery and showing a woman as the bravest soldier etc in that time is quite remarkable.

Hardly subtle. Eisenstein made this glorious piece of propaganda primarily as a warning to Hitler and the Nazis. It's about a time in the 13th century when Russia famously defeated the invading Germans under the leadership of Alexander NEVSKY, and there's no doubt as to just how evil these Germans are; at one point we see them throwing babies on the fire, (and in keeping with good Communist propaganda the Germans are the Christians forever flaunting their crucifixes). There's really nothing in the film except the call to arms and the battle that followed, (and its immediate aftermath), but what a battle it is, perhaps the finest and most famous ever put on film, (just as Prokofiev's accompanying score is among the finest ever composed for for a movie). There are images here as fine as any put on film and what other director handled crowd scenes in the way that Eisenstein did. It's not all perfect, of course. The dialogue is clunkier than the armor and the performances more wooden than the shields but primarily this is a visual epic and, as such, it's one of the classics of Russian cinema.

Great directors must be judged not only by their masterpieces but also by their failures. When talking about Eisenstein 'Alexandr Nevskiy' is such a failure, but it's not easy to judge Eisenstein upon it, as it is so obvious that most of the failure of this film do not belong to him.'AN' is a piece of anti-German propaganda made in 1938 on the eve of the second world war and of the conflict between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. To make points clear the authors fill in the film with such ridiculous details as having the 13th century Teutonic soldiers wear Wehrmacht-like helmets or the 20th century German effigy painted on the Teutonic flags. The conflict is extremely schematic and stereotype and it takes the full power of such a great actor as Nikolai Tschekasov was to give some life to the main character, while most if not all the other characters fall into ridicule or close.Yet, there are glimpses of great cinema in this film. The battle scene while not reaching the heights of the mass scenes in 'Potemkin' is well conceived and orchestrated, and the rendition of the German leaders has hypnotic power, with the Dark Monk figure looking like a cinematic father of Bergman's death angel and grandfather of Darth Vader. Best of all is the combination between Eisenstein's visuals and Prokofiev's musical score. Actually music is so good while text is so bad that I believe that it would have been much better if the whole text was sung rather than spoken - it would have been the first or one of the first filmed operas in history, not a forgettable propaganda film in the career of an extraordinary director.

I believe anyone who enjoyed Eisentein's Ivan the Terrible movies would enjoy this well crafted movie. This movie played out like "Lord of the Ring: Return of the King", but without the special effect but as good and better drama.We have the German, who dressed like KKK, conquered Novgorod of Russia. The Russian summoned Nevsky to lead them to fight the German to save Russia. Nikolai Cherkasov, who played Ivan in the Ivan the Terrible films, was charismatic as Nevsky. The first 10 min how he handled the passing by Mongol was captivating.Many of the scenes were beautiful even in black and white. The anticipation of War did not require any dialogue such as "how many enemy we will be killing", etc. Except for a few speeches, the film can basically be played out as a silent film. The fighting scene can hold up to those of the Civil War fighting scene of The Birth of a Nation.Another strength of the movie is the great musical score, by Sergei Prokofiev. The music gave an epic feel to the movie in those scenes without dialogue.