Traces the life of surgeon-poet Yury Zhivago before and during the Russian Revolution. Married to an upper-class girl who is devoted to him, yet he finds himself in love with an unfortunate woman who becomes his muse. Zhivago becomes torn between fidelity and passion. Sympathetic with the Bolshevik revolution, but shaken by the wars and purges, he struggles to retain his individualism as a humanist amid the spirit of collectivism.

The story of the life of Christ, describing certain events that took place between Romans and Jews and setting the political background for the life of Christ, and the personalities and ideas of the New Testament.