Fate of a Man

{{Infobox film

| name = Fate of a Man

| image = Fate of a Man.jpg

| caption =

| director = Sergei Bondarchuk

| based_on = Fate of a Man by Mikhail Sholokhov

| producer = Roskino

| writer = Yuri Lukin
Fyodor Shakhmagonov

| starring = Sergei Bondarchuk
Pavel Boriskin
Zinaida Kiriyenko
Pavel Volkov

| music = Veniamin Basner

| studio = Mosfilm

| released = {{Film date|1959|8}}

| runtime = 103 minutes

| country = Soviet Union

| language = Russian

| budget =

}}

Fate of a Man ({{langx|ru|Судьба человека}}, translit. Sudjba cheloveka), also released as A Man's Destiny and Destiny of a Man, is a 1959 Soviet World War II film adaptation of the short story by Mikhail Sholokhov, and also the directorial debut of Sergei Bondarchuk.{{cite book|title=Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema|author=Peter Rollberg|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2009|place=US|isbn=978-0-8108-6072-8|pages=224–225}} In the year of its release it won the Grand Prize at the 1st Moscow International Film Festival.{{cite web|url=http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1959 |title=1st Moscow International Film Festival (1959) |access-date=2012-11-03 |work=MIFF |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116210640/http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/miff34/eng/archives/?year=1959 |archive-date=2013-01-16 }}

Plot

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, driver-turned-Soviet soldier Andrei Sokolov has to part with his family. In May 1942 he is taken prisoner by the Germans. Sokolov endures the hell of a Nazi concentration camp, but thanks to his courage he avoids execution and finally escapes from captivity behind the front line to his own. On a short front-line vacation to his small homeland Voronezh, he learns that his wife and both daughters have died during the bombing of Voronezh by German aircraft. Of those close to him, only his son remained, who became an officer. On the last day of the war, May 9, Andrei receives news that his son has died.

After the war, the lonely Sokolov works as a truck driver away from his native places - in Uryupinsk (Stalingrad Oblast). There he meets a little boy Vanya, who was left an orphan: the boy's mother died during the bombing, and his father went missing during the war. Sokolov decides to tell the boy that he is his father, and by doing so he gives himself and the boy hope for a new happy family life.