Teheran ’43 (1981) Full Movie Summary & Plot Explained

Teheran 43 opens in 1980 Paris, where the memories of a conflicted agent begin to surface and pull the story back to a world torn by war. The narrative follows a seasoned Nazi assassin, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan as Max Richard, who 37 years earlier received a commission to strike at the heart of the Allied leadership during the Tehran Conference. In the present, Max hides with a young Parisian woman, Françoise, Claude Jade, who shelters him while a dangerous game unfolds around his past. Max trusts Françoise, but a second, darker thread threads through the tale: another Nazi operative, Albert Filozov as Scherner, is intent on tracking him down because the assassinations he failed to execute still haunt them both.

The film’s core flashback transports us to 1943 Tehran, where Max Richard is dispatched to carry out a kill-or-die mission against the very figures who will shape the war’s outcome. Max enters Tehran under a guise—he was brought there to bury a murdered Persian and to work as the funeral director for the deceased, a role that masks his true purpose. In this past, Max eliminates the lawyer of the dead, a figure named Gérard Simon, a move that triggers a chain of events still felt years later. Gleb Strizhenov portrays the lawyer’s interpreter, Marie, whose involvement in the conspiracy becomes a pivotal thread in the narrative. Marie, a sharp and wary ally, helps to unmask Max’s true plan and sets in motion a sequence of events that entwines romance with danger.

Amid the Tehran intrigue, a quiet romance blooms between Andrei Borodin, Igor Kostolevskiy and Marie, a liaison that complicates the mission and deepens the human stakes. Andrei is not simply a witness to history; he is a principled counterpart who would rather protect than betray, and his bond with Marie raises the tension as the clock ticks toward new confrontations. The pair’s partnership is tested by the presence of a convincing impostor: a photographer-cum-cinematographer named Dennis Pew, who is revealed as a dangerous asset used to mislead and trap Max. Georges Géret brings this figure to life, adding a layer of deception to the already perilous web surrounding Max, Andrei, and the people who protect or betray them.

Back in Paris in 1980, Andrei travels northward in pursuit of the truth, and his path crosses with Marie’s daughter, Nathalie, Natalya Belokhvostikova. The two generations of Marie’s world—mother and daughter—become a focal point as the past brushes against the present, and Andrei finds himself drawn into a disturbing juxtaposition of loyalty and love. The older Françoise, who shelters secrets of her own, pursues her own agenda as she tries to secure Max’s manuscript for profit, under the uneasy cover of aiding the man she is supposed to be protecting. Max’s fate remains tied to the dangerous bargain with Scherner, and the tension between trust and betrayal becomes a thread that continually tightens.

The plot intensifies as a dramatic plane hijacking, orchestrated by Scherner, forces a tense intersection of past and present. Andrei, whose resolve has carried him from Tehran to Paris, encounters Nathalie once more during this high-stakes crisis, rekindling a connection that is both personal and strategic. The local police, including Alain Delon as Inspector Foch, close in on the tangled conspiracy, while a brutal act changes the balance of power: Foch is assassinated in the back as he fights to protect the innocent. The assault demonstrates how quickly alliances crumble when old enemies are willing to pay any price to silence witnesses and secure their version of history.

As the hijack unfolds and the threat lingers, Max’s world begins to crumble. Marie, a victim of circumstance who once shielded him, is killed as a witness, a loss that ripples through Andrei and Nathalie. Françoise, now a crucial figure who has aligned with Scherner, guides Max into a final, precarious hiding place, hoping to turn the pages of the past into leverage for the present. Andrei, ever watchful, returns to Nathalie and learns from her the truth about Marie’s long-hidden feelings for him, a revelation that casts their memories in a new, bittersweet light.

In the waning minutes of the tale, Max is cornered in his hiding place and is shot by Scherner’s men. The law, embodied in the person of Legrain, Curd Jürgens the lawyer, interrogates Scherner and Françoise to glean what they know about the manuscript that could alter the record of their century-old crimes. The interrogation hints at a possible negotiation, a reckoning with a history too dangerous to leave intact. Andrei, forever marked by his experiences, travels back to Moscow, where the echoes of Tehran and Paris reverberate in the cold, distant paths of history he must travel alone.

The Tehran Conference itself, with its looming presence of the world’s top leaders, acts as a ghostly backdrop to the entire drama. In the memories that haunt Andrei, the plan to strike at Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt becomes a test of nerve, loyalty, and the cost of memory. Georgy Saakyan embodies Joseph Stalin, Mairbek Tsikhiyev embodies Winston Churchill, and Aleksei Zadachin embodies Franklin Roosevelt, reminding viewers that the past is never truly past when it continues to shape every choice in the present.

With its layered structure of flashbacks and present-day pursuit, the film explores themes of trust and betrayal, memory and myth, love and sacrifice. It paints a portrait of heroism that is complicated rather than clear-cut, where the lines between ally and foe blur in the heat of a mission that spans decades. And though the clock moves forward, the characters carry the weight of the Tehran conspiracy long after the final scenes unfold, forcing them to reckon with what was done, what was saved, and what may still be at stake.

Georgy Saakyan as Joseph Stalin

Mairbek Tsikhiyev as Winston Churchill

Aleksei Zadachin as Franklin Roosevelt

Armen Dzhigarkhanyan as Max Richard

Igor Kostolevskiy as Andrei Borodin

Claude Jade as Françoise

Natalya Belokhvostikova as Marie Louni/Nathalie Louni

Georges Géret as Dennis Pew

Curd Jürgens as Legrain

Albert Filozov as Scherner

Gleb Strizhenov as Gerard Simon

Evelyne Kraft as Jill