Three Sisters (1970) (Blu-ray)

In this faithful and compelling adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s timeless classic, director Laurence Olivier demonstrates the same facility for cinematic expression that made his filmed versions of Hamlet and Richard III so definitive. In Olivier’s assuredly brisk, graceful, meticulous, and witty rendering of Chekhov’s masterpiece, the sisters (Joan Plowright, Louise Pernell, Jeannie Watts) are doomed to remain in their provincial purgatory, nearly a thousand miles away from their beloved Moscow. Intoxicated by yesterday’s triumphs and heedless of tomorrow’s disasters, the three sisters are left to sift through the debris of their shattered dreams on the eve of the social and political upheaval that will transform Russia forever.