Born to Ukrainian peasants, Dovzhenko graduated from teachers college and became a political cartoonist for a Ukrainian newspaper. He also studied painting under German Expressionist Erich Heckel. He began his film career in 1926, making his directorial debut with the short subject Yagodki lyubvi (1926; “The Fruits of Love”). Zvenigora (1928), his first important film, is a lyrical history of the Ukrainian people from their Viking origins to the Russian Revolution; Arsenal (1929) deals with a hero of allegorical stature confronted with the forces of the Revolution; Zemlya (1930; The Earth) interprets in sensitive visual symbolism the almost mystical closeness of the Ukrainian peasant to his land. Other well-known films were Ivan (1932); Aerograd (also known as Frontier, 1935), dealing with the establishment of an airfield in a remote Siberian outpost; Shchors (1939), the story of a Ukrainian revolutionary commander, which won Dovzhenko the first of two Stalin prizes (1941, 1949); and Michurin (1946; Life in Blossom).

Dovzhenko wrote an autobiographical novel, Zacharovana Desna (The Enchanted), and numerous short stories.