The author of the essay examines the main trends in contemporaryRussian cinema, correlating them with similar manifestations in world cinemaand, simultaneously, tracing the origins of these phenomena to the Sovietcinematic past. Thus, the essay’s section devoted to the analysis of manifestationsof the Aesopian language in cinema, reveals models of the use of metaphors,symbolic allusions, etc., — observed in the cinema of the socialist countries or inSpanish cinema under the Franco regime - as ways of countering censorship bans.In this context, it should be noted that these trends became firmly established inthe cultures of the mentioned countries and have been preserved in them afterthe acquisition of political freedoms.The section entitled “Utopian Realism vs “New Sociality” analyses thetechnique of combining slice-of-life approach with the magic tale canon, openedby American director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin in the 1930s,known as “utopian realism” and widely employed in the Russian cinema of thepast quarter century, in particular in the stage-to-screen trend of the New Drama.The essay also looks at forms and methods of the trend of magical realismtypical of the turning points in the historical development of different countriesand here exemplified by the cultures of Latin America and the Russian cinemaof the 1990s.Further, the author analyses the adaptation of Hollywood genre clichés forRussian blockbusters, as well as a more frank representation of social realities inthe context of new developments in the sphere of economy.