Hard to Be a God is a 2013 Russian epic medieval science fiction film directed by Aleksei German who co-wrote the screenplay with Svetlana Karmalita. It was his last film and it is based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

Aleksei Yuryevich German was a Russian film director and screenwriter. In a career spanning five decades of filmmaking, German completed six feature films, noted for his stark pessimism, long, serpentine sequence shots, black and white cinematography, overbearing sound design and acute observations of Stalinist Russia.