Czar Nicholas II takes the Russian throne in 1894 and rejects modern ideas to embrace a pure autocracy. Tragedy marks his coronation day.

Russia's disastrous war against Japan prompts civil unrest. Prince Alexei is diagnosed with hemophilia, and Siberian mystic Rasputin steps in.

Rasputin's influence grows. The Romanovs retreat into a bubble of luxury while the czar's forces brutally suppress protests by a starving populace.

World War I takes Nicholas to the front. Back home, outrage grows over high casualties and Alexandra and Rasputin's political intrigues.

Rasputin is gone, but Nicholas continues his catastrophic policies in war and at home. Deprivation pushes the population from unrest to revolution.

The czar abdicates, and civil war erupts. As pro-royalist forces close in on the house where the Romanovs are imprisoned, the family's fate is sealed.