Early screen versions of Dostoevsky’s works were not densely connected with the original texts. Dostoevsky himself happened to be an object for achieving various goals and not for serious art reflection. The article investigates peculiarities of screen-versions of Dostoevsky’s works and the mechanism of transformations of the original plots in pre-Revolutionary and pre-Second World War cinema. The information about lost silent films is based on the film press: the film by gone libretto, reviews and critics’ comments.