[1] Mikhalkov is a three-time laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation (1993, 1995, 1999) and is a Full Cavalier of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland".

Mikhalkov's mother, poet Natalia Konchalovskaya, was the daughter of the avant-garde artist Pyotr Konchalovsky and granddaughter of another outstanding painter, Vasily Surikov.

While continuing to pursue his acting career, he entered VGIK, the state film school in Moscow, where he studied directing under filmmaker Mikhail Romm, teacher to his brother and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Mikhalkov had appeared in more than 20 films, including his brother's Uncle Vanya (1972), before he co-wrote, directed and starred in his first feature, At Home Among Strangers in 1974, an Ostern set just after the 1920s civil war in Russia.

In 1978, while starring in his brother's epic film Siberiade, Mikhalkov made Five Evenings, a love story about a couple separated by World War II, who meet again after eighteen years.

Mikhalkov's next film, A Few Days from the Life of I. I. Oblomov (1980), with Oleg Tabakov in the title role, is based on Ivan Goncharov's classic novel about a lazy young nobleman who refuses to leave his bed.

Without Witness (1983) tracks a long night's conversation between a woman (Irina Kupchenko) and her ex-husband (Mikhail Ulyanov) when they are accidentally locked in a room.

[2] In the early 1980s, Mikhalkov resumed his acting career, appearing in Eldar Ryazanov's immensely popular Station for Two (1982) and A Cruel Romance (1984).

Mikhalkov's most famous production to date, Burnt by the Sun (1994), was steeped in the paranoid atmosphere of Joseph Stalin's Great Terror.

[6] Mikhalkov used the critical and financial triumph of Burnt by the Sun to raise $25 million for his most epic venture to date, The Barber of Siberia (1998).

Despite much opposition from rival directors, he was elected the President of the Russian Society of Cinematographers and has managed the Moscow Film Festival since 2000.

In September 2007, 12 received a special Golden Lion for the “consistent brilliance” of its work and was praised by many critics at the Venice Film Festival.

He authored several articles about Ilyin and came up with the idea of transferring his remains from Switzerland to the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, where the philosopher had dreamed to find his last retreat.

In a speech given to the organization, Mikhalkov spoke about a "war against Orthodoxy" wherein he cited Orthodox Christianity as "the main force which opposes cultural and intellectual McDonald's".

[20] He also criticized those Russian cultural figures who oppose Russia's invasion, arguing that they were silent about the crimes against Donbas, and now, in his opinion, they are only saving their property abroad from sanctions and teaching their children there.