The Dog That Was Born for the Camera
There are dogs that photograph well, and then there are Borzoi. With their impossibly long snouts, flowing silk coats, and the kind of regal posture that makes other dogs look like they’re slouching, Borzoi in movies have been a fixture since the earliest days of Hollywood. Not as trained performers, usually. More as walking set decoration that happens to upstage the actual actors.
What makes the Borzoi such a natural fit for film and television is the same thing that made Russian aristocrats keep hundreds of them: they look like they belong in a painting. Directors figured that out early, and they haven’t stopped casting them since.
Golden Age Hollywood: Every Leading Lady Wanted One
Before Borzoi were movie stars, they were movie star accessories. In the 1920s and 1930s, the breed became the ultimate status symbol in Hollywood publicity photography. The logic was simple: if you wanted to project elegance, wealth, and a hint of exotic mystery, you posed with a Borzoi. And practically everyone did.
Jean Harlow was photographed with them. Greta Garbo was photographed with them. Theda Bara, Mary Pickford, Mae West, Olivia de Havilland, all posed alongside Borzoi for studio portraits. Even Marilyn Monroe appeared with one, though her Borzoi reportedly looked, in the words of one caption writer, “a bit apprehensive.” Kim Novak, Diana Rigg, and Sarah Bernhardt also made the list. Liberace took it a step further and brought Borzoi on the Vegas stage with him, because of course he did.
This wasn’t random. The Borzoi’s silhouette, tall, lean, dramatically curved, aligned perfectly with the Art Deco aesthetic that dominated the era. The artist Erté painted elegant women flanked by Borzoi, and the breed became a recurring motif in fashion illustration and advertising. McClelland Barclay featured them in his iconic ads for GM’s Fisher Body Company. The breed wasn’t just associated with glamour; it was shorthand for it.
Alfred A. Knopf, the legendary book publisher, made a Borzoi the company’s logo in 1922, a running wolfhound that still appears on the spine of every Knopf book today. His wife Blanche chose the breed for the colophon, though she later described Borzoi as “cowardly, stupid, disloyal, and full of self-pity.” The logo stayed.
Borzoi in Movies and TV: Specific Appearances Worth Knowing
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
James Whale’s gothic horror masterpiece features a whole troop of Borzoi in one scene. It’s a brief appearance, but it’s a perfect use of the breed, their ethereal, slightly otherworldly look fits the film’s aesthetic like they were designed for it. Universal horror and Russian sighthounds: a combination nobody asked for but that works better than it has any right to.
Lady and the Tramp (1955)
Disney gave us Boris, a Borzoi who appears among the pound dogs that Lady meets. Boris is tall, gray, philosophical, speaks with a Russian accent, waxes nostalgic about drinking the Tsar’s vodka, and quotes Russian literature. He’s arguably the most cultured character in the entire film. In early drafts, Boris was actually one of Lady’s neighbors and competed for her affection before the character was reworked and moved to the pound sequence.
101 Dalmatians (1961)
During the Twilight Bark sequence, where dogs across London relay the message about the stolen puppies, a “Russian Wolfhound” (the breed’s pre-1936 American name) appears among the chain of dogs spreading the news. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, but Borzoi enthusiasts have been spotting it for decades.
War and Peace (1966 Soviet Version)
This is the most fascinating Borzoi film story, even though the dogs themselves weren’t exactly cooperative. Director Sergei Bondarchuk was determined to recreate the aristocratic wolf hunts described in Tolstoy’s novel with authentic Borzoi, the breed that Russian nobility had used for exactly this purpose for centuries. He put out a public appeal and received 16 Borzoi donated by individual owners across the Soviet Union.
The problem: these were modern companion dogs, not wolves hunters. They had completely lost the coursing instinct their ancestors were bred for. The solution was characteristically Soviet in its complexity, scent hounds from the Ministry of Defense were brought in to actually chase down wolves (supplied by the state zoological department), while the Borzoi followed along behind looking magnificent. The breed’s entire contribution to the scene was, essentially, being beautiful on camera while other dogs did the actual work.
For anyone who has ever lived with a Borzoi, this tracks.
Fixed (2025, Netflix)
The most recent and most prominent Borzoi appearance on screen. Genndy Tartakovsky’s adult animated comedy features not one but two named Borzoi characters: Honey, a show dog voiced by Kathryn Hahn, and Sterling, a self-absorbed show dog voiced by Beck Bennett. The film premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2025 before releasing on Netflix in August.
The casting is perfect. Show dogs are a natural fit for Borzoi characters, the breed has been a fixture in the show ring since the breed’s introduction to the West, and the combination of beauty and imperious self-regard that the characters display is a very specific kind of breed humor that Borzoi owners will recognize immediately.
Beyond the Screen: The Cultural Footprint
The Borzoi’s screen career is just one piece of a larger cultural presence. Pink Floyd recorded a track called “Mademoiselle Nobs” in 1971, featuring a Borzoi named Nobs performing alongside David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright. The dog wasn’t just in the studio, she was credited as a performer.
And then there’s the breed’s current life on social media, which has arguably given the Borzoi more visibility than a century of film appearances combined. But that’s a different story for a different post.
Why This Matters for Borzoi Lovers
The Borzoi’s screen history tells you something about the breed that statistics and temperament guides can’t: these dogs command attention. They always have. From 1930s publicity stills to a 2025 Netflix feature, the same qualities that made Russian aristocrats dedicate entire estates to breeding them, the elegance, the presence, the quiet refusal to be ordinary, are the same qualities that make them irresistible to filmmakers.
If you’re someone who shares your life with one of these dogs, you already know this. You’ve seen the looks on strangers’ faces. You’ve answered the question “what kind of dog is that?” more times than you can count.
After a century of Borzoi in movies, you might as well wear the shirt.
Browse Borzoi apparel at Esoteric Design, original vintage-style illustrations on premium Bella+Canvas blanks. Five designs: Breed, Mom, Dad, Humor, and Latin. Built for people who take the breed seriously.
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