Artur Smolyaninov
Artur Smolyaninov (born 27 October 1983) is a Russian stage and screen actor, as well as a musician. He is best known for his leading role as Oleg Lutaev in Fyodor Bondarchuk’s war drama The 9th Company (2005), and for his work in international productions such as The Darkest Hour (2011) and Redirected (2014), and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur (2026), in which he played a bit part.
Smolyaninov was born on 27 October 1983 in Moscow and grew up in a creative family: his mother was a painter and art teacher, and his father taught music. He was drawn into movies almost by chance when, at fourteen, he was cast in Valery Priemykhov’s Who If Not Us (1998), a performance that won him a best teenage actor prize at the Artek International Film Festival. At sixteen he entered the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (RATI-GITIS) in Leonid Kheifets’s workshop, graduating in 2004 with roughly a dozen screen credits already behind him.
Wider recognition came with The 9th Company, in which he played the orphaned soldier known as Lyuty ("The Fierce"). The role became his signature and brought him the MTV-Russia movie award and the Triumph Prize in 2006. From 2006 to 2022 he was a member of the Moscow Sovremennik Theatre company. His screen career expanded across Russian television and movies, including Heat (2006), 1612 (2007), Nirvana (2008), Burnt by the Sun 2 (2010), and the series The White Guard (2012).
In 2022 Smolyaninov publicly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and left Russia, living first in Latvia and later obtaining Israeli citizenship. In January 2023 the Russian Ministry of Justice added him to its register of “foreign agents,” and in 2026 a Moscow court sentenced him in absentia to eight years in a penal colony. Since his exile he has continued to work in European productions, including a film shot in Estonia, and has hosted a Russian-language vodcast for Deutsche Welle.
Photos
Films (58)
Minotaur
2026 · Denis
Escape Net
2025
Extremist
2025 · Investigator
I Never Said Goodbye
2025 · Alex
Мирные огоньки - 2025
2024
The Jew
2023
Montevideo Unit
2023
Together More Fun
2022
Icône
2022 · Father Vladimir
Kalashnikov
2020 · Engineer captain Lyutyy
Квартирник НТВ у Маргулиса. Новогодний выпуск. Незваные гости
2018 · Self
All or Nothing
2018 · Denis
Piter by Kasta
2018
Life Ahead
2017 · Grisha Kiselyov
The Passenger
2017 · Basov
To Be
2017
Yana+Yanko
2017 · Timofey
Ivan Tsarevich et le Loup Gris 3
2016 · Серый волк (озвучка)
Two Four Legs
2016
Six Degrees of Celebration 1914
2014 · Pyotr
Breaking Loose
2014
Redirected
2014 · Doncius
Ivan Tsarevich et le Loup Gris 2
2013 · Серый Волк (озвучка)
A Habit of Breaking-Up
2013 · Anton
12 Months
2013
Princess' War
2013 · Кныш
Love with an Accent
2012 · Sasha
Soulless
2012 · Avdey
Unreal Love
2012 · Timur
Fairy Tale. There Is
2012 · Гордый Заяц
Ivan Tsarevich et le Loup Gris
2011 · Волк (озвучка)
Crépuscule
2011 · Yuri
Moy paren - angel
2011 · Serafim / Sergey
Five Brides
2011 · Vadim Dobromyslov
Without Men
2011
Soleil trompeur 3 : La citadelle
2011 · Yurka
Six Degrees of Celebration
2010 · Aleksey
A Yakuza's Daughter Never Cries
2010 · Inspector
Soleil trompeur 2 : L'exode
2010 · Yurka
The Irony of Love
2010
Будь со мной
2009
The Book of Masters
2009 · Yangul
I Am
2009 · Hero/I
Stories on Human Rights
2008 · Husband
The One Who Switches Off the Light
2008
Nirvana
2008 · Valera "The Dead"
I'm Standing on the Edge
2008
1612
2007 · Kostka
Mermaid
2007
The Heat
2006 · Artur Donskov
The Last Bottomhole
2006 · Andryukha
Le 9ème escadron
2005 · Lyutyy
Naked Pioneer
2005
Mars
2004 · Grigori
Daddy
2004 · Lyonchik
The Suit
2003 · Geka
The Red One: Triumph
2000
Who, If Not Us
1998
Séries (13)
Survivors
2021 · Schadrin
The Darkest Hour
2021 · Buian
Wolf
2020 · Безрук
Found_ Alive
2020
Gangs of Rostov
2019
Mounted Police
2018 · Sergey Volkov
Квартирник НТВ у Маргулиса
2017 · Self
Major Sokolov's Hetaerae
2014
Samara
2012 · Олег Самарин
Five Brides
2012 · Vadim Dobromyslov
Сыщик без лицензии
2003 · Aleksey Korenev - sotrudnik NII
Тайный знак
2002 · Иван «Вано» Савин
Last Hero
2001 · self - gamer