White Nights

A London to Tokyo airplane crash lands at a Siberian air strip and passenger Nikolai 'Kolya' Rochenko's nightmare begins...

Unconscious Nikolai (Mikhail Barishnikov) is found by the KGB to be the famous Russian ballet dancer who defected to the United States eight years earlier. Now that the defector is back on Russian soil, the authorities may refuse to let him leave. But the KGB have a plan. They want to try to get Nikolai to return to Russia of his own free will. They send him to meet with another famous defector. An American United States Army deserter living in Russia.

They bring Nikolai to his old apartment where the American is sent to keep an eye on him and is ordered to convince him to stay in Russia. They also use Nikolai's former lover (Helen Mirren) to try and talk him into staying.

Trapped and powerless, Nikolai forms an unlikely friendship with the American, Raymond Greenwood (Gregory Hines), a tap dancer, who has come to Russia because he was fed up with racism in the United States. Raymond has perhaps changed his mind about being in Russia and has found that racism exists everywhere.

The two men find that their love of dance overcomes political differences. The dancers come up with a daring escape plan. They recruit the help of several characters along the way.

Nikolai is determined to go back to the United States and Raymond is just as determined not to leave his wife (Isabella Rossellini), a Soviet citizen.