In the second hour of “The Putin Interviews,” the filmmaker Oliver Stone invites Vladimir V. Putin on a movie date. Mr. Stone asks the Russian president if he’s ever seen “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” Mr. Putin says he hasn’t, so Mr. Stone gets him to watch the 1964 nuclear-war satire in a conference room: a little Nyetflix-and-chill.

Mr. Stone is animated, laughing and dropping bits of trivia. Mr. Putin sits still, smiling thinly. If you’ve ever seen a movie with your cineaste friend who really needs you to love it as much as he does, you know this dynamic.

Mr. Putin offers a few unenthusiastic words of praise. But what is he really feeling? Bemusement? Discomfort? Contempt? Does he see Mr. Stone as a journalist, an ally or a fool?

I couldn’t say. But the awkward interlude captures the — to borrow a “Strangelove” word — essence of “The Putin Interviews,” and what the two men seem to want from the production.