Abstract: In his research Muradov analyzes traditions of research devoted to films about the Great Patriotic War. The author demonstrates contradiction of two approaches offered by modern critics that were born at the crossing of different traditions, the concept of the epic narration and the principle of historical credibility. Images of the war in the 20th century including the image of the Great Patriotic War are developed by media - TV and cinema in the first place. TV serials about war (both feature motion films and documentaries) reflect both ideological and social needs of the time. Noteworthy that today, 70 years after, analysis of the image of war on TV is inextricably connected with the concept of epos as well as the relationship between epos and the problem of historical and human memory. These are visual mass media means that substitute our own memory with the 'collective' memory which creates the problem of mythologisation. The narration about war becomes some kind of an epos, sometimes heroic, sometimes folk, sometimes both, while it is not an epos as it is. The problem of historical credibility arises when epos is opposed to myth in modern films. Each serial film is critisized from the point of view of the epic and historical approaches which are opposite principles. The farther the events are in time, the deeper the conflict between historical credibility and the attemp to create a new epos is.