Prisoner of the Mountains (Russian: Кавказский пленник, Kavkazskiy plennik), also known as Prisoner of the Caucasus, is a 1996 Russian war drama film directed by Sergei Bodrov and written by Bodrov, Arif Aliyev and Boris Giller. The film is based on the 1872 Caucasian War-era short story "The Prisoner in the Caucasus" by the classic Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.

Prisoner of the Mountains was awarded a Crystal Globe at the 1996 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and the same year was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Russia) and a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Russia). It also received generally positive critic reviews.

This film illustrates the conflicting views between traditional Chechen culture and Russian warfare through the use of soundtrack, costuming, and arms. The personal confrontation between two Russian soldiers and their Chechen captors is the main theme of the film, which was shot in the mountains of Dagestan (mostly in the aul of Ritcha, whose inhabitants are mentioned in the film's credits), a short distance away from the then-ongoing First Chechen War.

The First Chechen war was to establish independence from Russia. Bodrov creates contrasting views between these two cultures after two Russian soldiers are captured in exchange for the son of a Chechen's father. This movie revolved around the strife between the people who are caught in the rivalry between the Chechens and Russians. A common theme of Revenge. The viewer confronts from the importance of human conflict and war from the very beginning [2]