The Adventures of Mowgli

The Adventures of Mowgli (1973) is a Soviet animated feature you can watch online on iFILM. Drawn from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, it follows a human infant lost in the Indian forest and taken in by a wolf pack. He grows up as one of the animals — and yet never quite stops being something else.

Raised under the watch of the panther Bagheera and the bear Baloo, Mowgli learns the law of the jungle and steels himself, year by year, for a reckoning with Shere Khan, the tiger who never forgave the wolves for letting their prey slip away. The film carries a darker, more serious tone than the Disney musical most viewers know — this is a coming-of-age story, not a song-and-dance menagerie. Sofia Gubaidulina's restless, near-symphonic score makes the jungle feel genuinely dangerous.

Director Roman Davydov assembled the feature from five Soyuzmultfilm shorts made between 1967 and 1971. Generations of Russian-speaking viewers grew up on it, and the line "We be of one blood, you and I" became part of the language. If you want hand-drawn animation with real stakes and a hero who must choose between two worlds, this one rewards you. Stream The Adventures of Mowgli (1973) online on iFILM.