Кино и ТВ

Антон Ельчин

Leningrad-born star who redefined a generation

Бен Уишоу

British actor whose great-grandmother was Russian

Дэвид Духовны

Actor and writer with Ukrainian Jewish roots

Гвинет Пэлтроу

Oscar winner with roots in the Russian Empire

Харрисон Форд

Han Solo's grandfather fled the Russian Empire

Хелен Миррен

Dame Helen Mirren, royalty with Russian roots

Кёрк Дуглас

Hollywood titan forged from Belarusian immigrant roots

Леонардо ДиКаприо

Oscar-winning actor with Russian Imperial roots

Марина Влади

French cinema icon born of Russian émigré nobility

Мила Кунис

Hollywood star born in Soviet Chernivtsi, Ukraine

Милла Йовович

Kyiv-born action icon who conquered Hollywood

Натали Портман

Oscar-winning actress with Lithuanian-Jewish roots

Орнелла Мути

Italian screen icon, Baltic-Russian sculptor's granddaughter

Палина Рожински

Leningrad-born queen of German pop culture

Памела Андерсон

Baywatch icon with Mennonite roots in the Russian Empire

Питер Устинов

Polyglot actor-playwright with Russian imperial roots

Сет Роген

Canadian comedy star with roots in the Russian Empire

Стивен Спилберг

Hollywood titan, roots in the Russian Empire

Сильвестр Сталлоне

Rocky's roots run through Odessa

Уильям Шатнер

Captain Kirk, rooted in the Russian Empire

Вайнона Райдер

Hollywood icon with roots in the Russian Empire

Юл Бриннер

Vladivostok-born king of Hollywood's golden age

Зедд

Grammy-winning producer born in Saratov, USSR

Агнес Брукнер

Hollywood actress born in Germany to Russian-German immigrant parents

Аким Тамиров

Armenian character actor born in the Russian Empire, trained at the Moscow Art Theatre; two Oscar nominations and the first Golden Globe for best supporting actor

Алан Аркин

Oscar-winning American actor whose grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Russia and Germany

Альберт Брукс

Hollywood's sharpest neurotic, rooted in the Pale.

Алехандро Ходоровски

Surrealist visionary born of empire's diaspora.

Алисия Сильверстоун

Actress, Cher Horowitz in Clueless (1995)

Алла Назимова

Actress born in Yalta, trained in Moscow under Nemirovich-Danchenko; Ibsen star of Broadway and producer-star of the silent Salomé

Алма Зак

Israeli singer with Polish-German Jewish roots — winner of HaKokhav HaBa

Аманда Байнс

Nickelodeon star with Russian-Jewish roots on her mother's side

Аманда Сейфрид

Mamma Mia actress with partial Russian ancestry through her mother's German-Russian family

Анатоль Литвак

Film director born in Kiev, trained in Petrograd; Mayerling, The Battle of Russia, The Snake Pit and Anastasia

Эндрю Гарфилд

Actor; grandson of a Kielce-born emigrant to London

Андрей Звягинцев

Siberian filmmaker who made Russia indict itself.

Аня Букштейн

Israeli actress with Russian immigrant roots who starred in Game of Thrones

Аннет Махендру

Moscow-born actress who made espionage bilingual

Ари Фольман

Animated trauma into the Beirut massacre

Арми Хаммер

Hollywood heir to an Odessa oil dynasty

Барни Балабан

President of Paramount for nearly thirty years, son of emigrants from Tiraspol and Odessa

Бен Стиллер

Actor and director; grandson of an emigrant from Frampol in Russian Poland

Бернард Делфон

Born in Tokmak, Russian Empire; London theatre impresario and life peer

Билли Уайлдер

Galician-born writer-director of Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment

Борис Гребенщиков

Leningrad-born singer-songwriter, founder of Aquarium (1972)

Брэндон Кроненберг

Body horror's second generation

Бронсон Пинчот

Perfect Strangers star with Russian-descended father who became a beloved sitcom icon

Карл Райнер

Comedian, writer and director born in the Bronx; creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1922-2020)

Кэрри Фишер

Princess Leia and fearless memoirist with Russian-Jewish roots through her father Eddie Fisher

Чулпан Хаматова

Russia's greatest stage actress who fled Putin's Russia to Latvia after opposing the Ukraine war

Константин Ронин

Russian-born actor who played a KGB spy in The Americans and became a Hollywood fixture

Кёрли Говард

Member of the Three Stooges, son of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants from Kaunas

Дэн Леви

Schitt's Creek co-creator, descendant of emigrants from Russian-ruled Poland

Дэниел Рэдклифф

Actor; his mother's Jewish family includes a great-great-grandmother born in Russia

Данила Козловский

Russia's most celebrated young actor and director, famous in Russia and globally for Vampire Academy

Дэнни Кей

Comedian, actor and singer born in Brooklyn to parents from Yekaterinoslav; first ambassador-at-large of UNICEF

Даррен Аронофски

Brooklyn-born director of Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan and The Whale, of Polish-Jewish descent

Даша Некрасова

Minsk-born actress and Red Scare podcast host who became a cult voice of millennial disillusionment

Дэйв Франко

Hollywood actor with Russian-Jewish roots on his mother's side

Давид Диггс

Hamilton Tony winner with Russian-Jewish roots on his mother's side

Дэвид Кроненберг

Canadian film director of The Fly, Dead Ringers and A History of Violence, born in Toronto

Дэвид О. Селзник

Son of a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant who produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca

Дэвид Швиммер

Friends actor and director whose great-grandparents were Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire, per genealogical sources

Дианна Агрон

Glee actress with a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish family name that traces to Novgorod-Siversky

Дастин Хоффман

Two-time Oscar winner; grandson of emigrants from the Kiev Governorate

Эдди Кантор

Entertainer of the Ziegfeld Follies, Broadway, radio and film, who gave the March of Dimes its name; son of a young Jewish couple from Russia

Эдвард Г. Робинсон

Bucharest-born Hollywood star of Little Caesar and Double Indemnity

Эмилия Шуле

Born in Blagoveshchensk, Russia, she became one of Germany's most celebrated young actresses

Эрих фон Штрогейм

Vienna-born film director and actor of Greed and La Grande Illusion (1885-1957)

Юджин Леви

SCTV comedy legend with Russian-Bulgarian Jewish roots who found global fame in Schitt's Creek

Евгения Леонтович

Moscow-born actress who electrified Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1970s

Эзра Миллер

The Flash actor with Russian-Jewish roots who became one of Hollywood's most unconventional stars

Фанни Брайс

Star of the Ziegfeld Follies and of radio's Baby Snooks, whose life inspired Funny Girl

Фёдор Ларк

Born in Siberia in 1997 — adopted to the USA as a toddler, became a child actor in Medium

Фред Зиннеманн

Born in Rzeszow in the Russian Empire, directed High Noon and A Man for All Seasons

Фивуш Финкель

Yiddish theatre legend from Brooklyn with Russian-Polish roots who found new fame in Picket Fences

Джин Уайлдер

Actor and writer, born Jerome Silberman to a Russian Jewish family in Milwaukee

Геннадий Тартаковский

Moscow-born animation auteur who created Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Primal

Джордж Сандерс

British actor born in St Petersburg in 1906; Academy Award for All About Eve, Rebecca, The Picture of Dorian Gray and the voice of Shere Khan

Гидеон Рафф

Israeli showrunner with Russian roots who created Prisoners of War — the Israeli series that became Homeland

Гильда Рэднер

Original cast member of Saturday Night Live (1975–80), Emmy winner 1978; granddaughter of an emigrant from Lithuania

Голди Хон

American actress, Academy Award winner for Cactus Flower

Григорий Ратов

St. Petersburg actor and director who played every European rogue in 1930s Hollywood

Хагай Леви

Israeli showrunner with Russian roots who created BeTipul — the series that became HBO's In Treatment

Гарри Уорнер

Born in the Russian Empire, co-founded Warner Bros and brought sound to cinema

Харви Файерстайн

Playwright and actor; author of Torch Song Trilogy and four-time Tony Award winner

Харви Кейтель

Actor of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and The Piano; Academy Award nomination for Bugsy

Гектор Бабенко

Argentine-Brazilian director with Ukrainian-Russian roots who made Kiss of the Spider Woman

Хеди Ламарр

Vienna-born film actress and co-inventor of frequency-hopping spread spectrum (1914-2000)

Гершель Бернарди

Broadway and Hollywood actor with Ukrainian-Russian Jewish roots who voiced Charlie the Tuna

Игорь Джиджикин

Moscow-born actor who played the villain in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Илья Найшуллер

Moscow director who made the first-person action film Nobody and the viral Hardest Button to Button video

Инбар Лави

Israeli actress with Polish-Moroccan Jewish roots who starred in Imposters and Prison Break

Ингеборга Дапкунайте

Vilnius-born actress who starred in Mission: Impossible and became a star across three cultures

Ирвинг Тальберг

Son of German Jewish immigrants; head of production at MGM from 1925

Иван Мозжухин

Silent-film star of Russia and then France, born in Kondol in 1889; Father Sergius, Kean and Michel Strogoff; the face of the Kuleshov experiment

Иван Райтман

Czech-born Canadian director with Russian roots who produced Animal House and directed Ghostbusters

Дж. Дж. Абрамс

Film and television director and producer (Lost, Star Trek, Star Wars: The Force Awakens), born in New York

Джек Блэк

Actor and musician, son of the aerospace engineer Judith Love Cohen

Джек Кёрби

Son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants; co-creator of Captain America and the Fantastic Four

Джек Уорнер

Born in Canada to Jewish immigrants from Congress Poland (Russian Empire); head of production at Warner Bros. until 1969

Джейк Джилленхол

Actor; great-grandson of Latvian Jewish emigrants on his mother's side

Джеймс Франко

Oscar-nominated actor and polymath whose mother has Russian-Jewish roots

Джанет Сазман

Johannesburg-born actress and director, Royal Shakespeare Company member and Oscar nominee

Януш Камински

Polish-born cinematographer who shot Schindler's List and became Spielberg's visual eye

Джейсон Александер

George Costanza on Seinfeld — a genealogy site traces his maternal line to the Russian Empire

Джейсон Айзекс

Lucius Malfoy actor with Eastern European Jewish roots who became one of British film's finest character actors

Джейсон Райтман

Director of Juno and Up in the Air — son of Ivan Reitman, grandson of Czech-Russian Jewish refugees

Джейсон Сигел

How I Met Your Mother star and Muppets writer with Russian-Jewish roots on his father's side

Джефф Голдблюм

Actor and jazz pianist; grandson of an emigrant from the Minsk Governorate

Джеффри Тэмбор

Arrested Development and Transparent actor from a Jewish family with roots in Hungary and Ukraine

Дженнифер Коннелли

Actress, Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind (2001); her mother's ancestors were Jewish emigrants from Poland and Russia

Дженнифер Джейсон Ли

The Hateful Eight actress with Austrian-Russian Jewish roots through her mother's family

Дженни Слейт

SNL comedian and Obvious Child star with Russian-Jewish roots on her father's side

Хоакин Феникс

Oscar-winning actor whose maternal grandfather's family came from Russia

Джон Гарфилд

Lower East Side-born son of Russian-Jewish immigrants; star of Body and Soul

Джона Хилл

Actor and filmmaker, born in Los Angeles

Джозеф Сидар

New York-born Israeli film director; two Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film (Beaufort, Footnote)

Джозеф Гордон-Левитт

Actor and filmmaker; grandson of the director Michael Gordon

Джозеф Шенк

Film executive born in Rybinsk; president of United Artists, co-founder of Twentieth Century Pictures and chairman of 20th Century-Fox

Джулиана Маргулис

Emmy-winning actress of ER and The Good Wife, of Ashkenazi Jewish descent including Russia

Кэт Деннингс

Actress of 2 Broke Girls and the Thor films

Кейт Хадсон

Actress of Almost Famous and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days; co-founder of Fabletics

Кевин Клайн

American actor, Academy Award winner for A Fish Called Wanda and three-time Tony Award winner

Кирилл Серебренников

Rostov-born theatre and film director placed under house arrest by Putin — now in exile in Paris

Константин Хабенский

Leningrad-born actor who starred in Night Watch and became the face of modern Russian cinema internationally

Ксения Соло

Riga-born Canadian actress who starred in Lost Girl and Black Swan

Кайра Седжвик

Golden Globe and Emmy winner for The Closer

Лана Вуд

Natalie Wood's sister — born to Russian immigrant parents, played a Bond girl in Diamonds Are Forever

Ларри Файн

Member of the Three Stooges, born in Philadelphia to a Russian-Jewish family

Ларри Кинг

Radio and television host born in Brooklyn; son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus; host of Larry King Live on CNN, 1985-2010

Лорен Бэколл

Bronx-born Hollywood and Broadway star whose paternal grandparents came from Valozhyn (now Belarus)

Ли Дж. Кобб

The original Willy Loman — Russian-Romanian Jewish actor who defined American theatrical realism

Ли Филипс

American actor and director with Russian Empire Jewish roots

Ли Страсберг

Galicia-born American acting teacher, artistic director of the Actors Studio (1951-1982)

Леонард Нимой

Spock of Star Trek, director of Star Trek III and IV and Three Men and a Baby; son of Yiddish-speaking parents from Iziaslav

Лев Горн

Stavropol-born actor who became a fixture of American film and television

Льюис Майлстоун

Film director born Leib Milstein in the Russian Empire; two Academy Awards, for Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front

Лив Шрайбер

Actor and director — Tony for Glengarry Glen Ross, Ray Donovan, director of Everything Is Illuminated; grandson of an emigrant from the Russian Empire

Лили Коллинз

Actress of Emily in Paris, To the Bone and Mank, twice nominated for a Golden Globe; Russian Jewish descent through her maternal grandfather

Лиор Раз

Creator and star of Fauda — the Israeli Netflix thriller that became a global phenomenon

Лиза Боне

Cosby Show breakout star whose mother has Russian-Jewish ancestry

Лиза Эдельштейн

House MD's Dr. Cuddy — her Russian-Jewish grandparents shaped a family of achievers

Лиза Кудроу

Actress and producer; granddaughter of an emigrant from Ilya, near Minsk

Логан Лерман

Percy Jackson star whose family traces Russian and Polish Jewish roots

Лорн Майклс

Toronto-born creator of Saturday Night Live — his parents came from Russia

Луис Б. Майер

Co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, born in the Russian Empire (Dymer or Minsk)

Мэгги Джилленхол

Actress and filmmaker — Secretary, Crazy Heart, The Honourable Woman, writer-director of The Lost Daughter; her mother's grandparents emigrated from Latvia

Мэнди Мур

Singer and actress — debut album So Real (1999), A Walk to Remember, Rapunzel in Tangled, Rebecca Pearson in This Is Us

Мэнди Патинкин

Actor and singer descended from Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland

Мария Успенская

Actress and teacher born in Tula; founding member of the Moscow Art Theatre's First Studio, teacher of Lee Strasberg, twice nominated for an Academy Award

Марина Максимилиан

Dnipro-born Israeli pop star who brought Russian musical soul into Hebrew music

Марк Иванир

Chernivtsi-born actor who appeared in Schindler's List and The Terminal

Марти Фелдман

The goggle-eyed comic genius of Young Frankenstein — his parents came from Kyiv

Мэтью Бродерик

Actor, born in Manhattan; two-time Tony Award winner

Мэттью Вайнер

Creator of Mad Men; grandson of immigrants, his grandfather born in Russia

Майя Рудольф

SNL star whose father Richard Rudolph has Lithuanian-Jewish roots from the Russian Empire

Майим Бялик

Big Bang Theory and Blossom actress with Ukrainian-Polish Jewish roots who also has a PhD in neuroscience

Мелвин Дуглас

Born Melvyn Hesselberg, son of a Riga-born Jewish concert pianist — American actor, two Academy Awards

Михаил Чехов

Actor and teacher, nephew of Anton Chekhov; star of the Moscow Art Theatre's First Studio and head of MAT-2, later an Oscar nominee for Spellbound and author of To the Actor

Майкл Дуглас

Producer and actor; grandson of emigrants from Chavusy

Майкл Дудикофф

American Ninja star whose father emigrated from Russia — an unexpected action hero of the 1980s

Мишель Хазанавичюс

French director of Lithuanian and Polish Jewish descent; Academy Award for Best Director for The Artist

Майк Николс

Born in Berlin to a Russian-Jewish family that had lived in Siberia; film and stage director and EGOT winner

Майк Тодд

Born to Ukrainian-Polish Jewish immigrants — the showman who made Around the World in 80 Days and married Elizabeth Taylor

Милла Йовович

Born in Kyiv, raised between Moscow and Los Angeles — became The Fifth Element and Resident Evil icon

Миша Ауэр

St Petersburg-born actor nominated for an Academy Award for My Man Godfrey (1936)

Мо Говард

Leader of the Three Stooges, 190 Columbia shorts (1934–57); son of Lithuanian Jews from Kovno

Молли Пикон

The Queen of Second Avenue — her parents came from Kyiv, she became the greatest Yiddish theatre star in history

Наталия Орейро

Uruguayan actress and singer, a star in Russia since Muñeca Brava and a Russian citizen since 2021

Натали Вуд

Born in San Francisco to emigrants from Barnaul and Ussuriysk

Неемия Персофф

Jerusalem-born character actor with Russian-Jewish parents who became a Hollywood legend

Николас Шенк

Film executive born in Rybinsk in 1881; president of Loew's Inc., the parent company of MGM, for three decades

Ноа Уайли

ER's Dr. Carter — his father Stephen Wyle has Russian-Jewish roots from the Russian Empire

Олег Тактаров

Born in secret Soviet nuclear city Sarov — became UFC champion and Hollywood actor

Олег Видов

Soviet heartthrob who defected from the USSR — became a Hollywood actor and freedom symbol

Ольга Фонда

Born in Ukhta, Komi Republic — Russian actress who built a Hollywood career in action and thriller films

Ольга Куриленко

Born in Berdyansk, Ukraine — became a Bond girl, starred in Oblivion and relocated to France

Отто Преминджер

Film director and producer of Laura and Anatomy of a Murder, born in Austrian Bukovina (1905-1986)

Патрисия Аркетт

Oscar- and Emmy-winning actress whose Jewish mother's ancestors emigrated from Poland and Russia

Пол Муни

Lemberg-born actor; Academy Award winner for The Story of Louis Pasteur

Пол Рейзер

Mad About You star whose family came from Russia and Romania — a quintessential New York Jewish comedian

Пол Радд

Actor; both parents descended from Jewish immigrants to London from Russia, Belarus and Poland

Питер Фальк

American actor best known as Lieutenant Columbo; reported to be of Russian Jewish ancestry on his father's side

Раде Шербеджия

Croatian actor of Serb origin, cast again and again as Hollywood's Russian

Радж Капур

India's great showman and the best-known Indian film star in the Soviet Union

Рашида Джонс

Parks and Recreation star whose great-grandfather came from Latvia (Russian Empire)

Регина Тодоренко

Odessa-born presenter who became one of Russia's most popular TV hosts — now in exile

Рената Литвинова

Moscow's most theatrical actress and screenwriter — an unforgettable presence in Russian cinema

Рене Обержонуа

Odo in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; his maternal great-grandmother was a Russian noblewoman

Рик Моранис

Ghostbusters' Louis Tully — his grandparents came from Russia and Ukraine

Ривер Феникс

Actor of Stand by Me, Running on Empty and My Own Private Idaho (Volpi Cup, 1991); his mother's father's family came from Russia

Роб Райнер

Actor and director born in the Bronx, son of Carl Reiner (1947-2025)

Роберт Дауни мл.

American actor whose paternal great-grandparents were Lithuanian Jews

Робер Оссейн

French actor and director whose father was born in Russian Central Asia and whose mother was born in Kiev

Роже Вадим

His father fled Kyiv — the director who launched Brigitte Bardot and married Jane Fonda

Розанна Аркетт

Desperately Seeking Susan star — shares Polish-Russian Jewish roots with sisters Patricia and David

Рубен Мамулян

Stage and film director born in Tiflis to an Armenian family; staged Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma! and Carousel, and made Becky Sharp, the first three-strip Technicolor feature

Саша Барон Коэн

Comedian and actor from a Belarusian Jewish family on his father's side

Сэм Рэйми

Director of The Evil Dead and the Spider-Man trilogy, born in Royal Oak, Michigan

Сэмюэл Голдвин

Film producer born in Warsaw, Congress Poland; the 'G' in MGM

Сара Джессика Паркер

Actress and producer, born in Nelsonville, Ohio

Саша Демидов

Born in Tashkent, trained at GITIS in Moscow — became one of Israel's most beloved stage and screen actors

Саша Лусс

Born in Magadan — the Russian Far East model who starred in Anna and became an international face

Сол Рубинек

Canadian actor born in a German DP camp to Polish-Russian Jewish survivors — Unforgiven, Warehouse 13

Савелий Крамаров

Moscow's most beloved comic actor who defected to Hollywood and starred alongside Clint Eastwood

Скарлетт Йоханссон

Actress whose mother's family came from Minsk and from Russian-ruled Poland

Шон Пенн

Actor and director with three Academy Awards — Mystic River, Milk and One Battle After Another (2026); grandson of emigrants from Merkinė, Lithuania

Сергей Дягилев

Impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, born in the Novgorod Governorate

Шемп Говард

Original member of the Three Stooges, son of Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants from Kaunas

Сидни Люмет

Son of Warsaw-born actor Baruch Lumet — directed 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network

Соломон Хурок

Born in Pogar, Russia — became America's greatest impresario and brought Russian culture to the world

Софи Уинклман

British actress with Russian-Jewish grandmother who married into the British royal family

Стэн Ли

Comic-book writer and Marvel editor, born in Manhattan to Romanian-Jewish parents

Стелла Адлер

Born in New York to Odessa-born Yiddish theatre king Jacob Adler — taught Brando, De Niro and Beatty

Стивен Сигал

American action-film actor and aikido teacher; Russian citizen since 2016

Светлана Ходченкова

Moscow-born actress who played Viper in The Wolverine and became Russia's most internationally recognised star

Тайка Вайтити

New Zealand director of Thor: Ragnarok and Jojo Rabbit, whose maternal great-grandfather was a Russian Jew from a Novozybkov family

Тейлор Момзен

Gossip Girl actress turned rock frontwoman — her maternal grandmother has Russian Jewish roots

Теодор Бикель

Actor and folk singer who played Tevye more than 2,000 times and was often cast in Russian roles; the original Captain von Trapp

Тимоти Шаламе

Actor; great-grandson of Jewish emigrants on his mother's side

Тимур Бекмамбетов

Born in Kazakhstan, directed Night Watch — the biggest Russian blockbuster ever — then conquered Hollywood

Томар Капон

Israeli actor with Russian-Iraqi Jewish roots who starred in When Heroes Fly

Тони Кёртис

Son of Hungarian-Jewish immigrants; star of Some Like It Hot

Тополь (Хаим Тополь)

Israeli actor, Tevye of the 1971 film Fiddler on the Roof and of thousands of stage performances; his father was born in Russia

Тиа Леони

Madam Secretary actress whose mother has Polish-Russian Jewish roots

Вэл Льютон

Born in Yalta — the producer who invented psychological horror and made RKO's greatest films

Вик Морроу

Combat! star whose parents came from the Russian Empire — the quintessential TV tough guy

Виктор Гарбер

Canadian actor with Russian-Jewish roots who starred in Titanic, Alias, and won multiple Tony Awards

Владимир Машков

Уоллес Шоун

The Princess Bride's Vizzini — his Russian-Jewish grandfather shaped a playwright who became Hollywood's most quotable villain

Уолтер Кёниг

Pavel Chekov of Star Trek and Alfred Bester of Babylon 5; son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants named Königsberg

Уолтер Маттау

American actor born on the Lower East Side to a father from Kyiv and a mother from Lithuania; Oscar and two-time Tony winner

Братья Уорнер

Born in Krasnosielc, Poland (Russian Empire) — the four brothers who built Hollywood's most socially conscious studio

Уильям Фридкин

Director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, born in Chicago to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine (1935-2023)

Вуди Аллен

Filmmaker whose grandparents came from Panevėžys, Lithuania, and from Austria

Яэль Гробглас

Яков Смирнофф

Comedian born Yakov Pokhis in Odessa in 1951; the Soviet immigrant of 1980s American comedy ('What a country!'), later a Branson headliner and doctor of psychology

Евгений Арье

Юлия Снигирь

Юрий Шевчук

Born in Magadan — frontman of DDT, Russia's most politically fearless rock band

Зак Эфрон

Actor, born in San Luis Obispo, California

Зиро Мостел

The original Tevye and the original Max Bialystock

Зои Кравиц

Actress and director; her father's family descends from Russian and Ukrainian Jews

Даниэль Донской

Moscow-born German actor, musician and host of Freitagnacht Jews

Максимилиан Мундт

Lead of Netflix's How to Sell Drugs Online Fast — Germany's biggest streaming star with Russian paternal roots

Катарина Тальбах

Berlin theatrical legend with Russian theatrical roots — the most beloved actress on the German-speaking stage

Марк Вашке

Star of Dark (Netflix) — Germany's most internationally recognised dramatic actor with Russian family roots

Костя Ульман

Russian-born German actor known for Sommersturm and major German romantic comedies

Пом Клементьефф

French actress, Mantis in the Marvel films, granddaughter of the Russian-born painter Eugène Klementieff

Айра Олдридж

African-American Shakespearean tragedian who toured the Russian Empire from 1858, befriended Taras Shevchenko and died on tour in Łódź

Георгий Питоев

Stage director and actor born Gevorg Pitoyan in Tiflis in 1884; co-founder of the Cartel des Quatre, who introduced Chekhov, Pirandello and Shaw to the French stage

Людмила Питоева

Stage actress born in Tiflis, one of the great Paris actresses between the wars; Saint Joan, Nora and Chekhov's heroines in the Pitoëff company