Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago is a young doctor and rising poet, about to be married to Anna. He meets Larissa Ameliava 'Lara' Antipova (the teenage mistress of a politician) when she tries to kill herself. Lara marries the Bolshevik Antipov, and as the Great War unfolds, Yuri and Lara go off to war to tend the wounded, fall in love and lead a passionate affair as the old régime collapses.

Yury returns to Moscow to find his house has been taken over by the Reds. He becomes a surgeon at a Moscow hospital but Mischa advises him to leave Moscow.

Yury has been captured by the Partisan. Lara nurses Tonya as she has her baby.