The article summarizes and compares various opinions on Sergei Yutkevich’s 1955 film “Othello” expressed both behind and beyond the Iron Curtain and after the collapse of the USSR. The author looks at these views through the prism of Yutkevich’s own conception of the film he described in his book “Shakespeare and Cinema” (1973) and other publications. The author proposes a possible reason why Western Shakespearean scholars and film experts have not paid much attention to the work of the Soviet director, compared to “Hamlet” and “King Lear” directed by Grigori Kozintsev.The main points of the article were presented at the panel “Shakespeare on the Soviet Screen” at the 9th European Shakespeare Research Association Congress “Shakespeare and E...