Alternate versions

Sergei Eisenstein's premiere version opened with an unattributed quote from Leon Trotsky's "1905": The spirit of mutiny swept the land. A tremendous, mysterious process was taking place in countless hearts: the individual personality became dissolved in the mass, and the mass itself became dissolved in the revolutionary impetus. This quote was removed by Soviet censors in 1934, and replaced by a quotation from V.I. Lenin's "Revolutionary Days": Revolution is war. Of all the wars known in history, it is the only lawful, rightful, just and truly great war...In Russia this war has been declared and won. The original text was restored in 2004.

In 2007, Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin, copyrighted a reconstruction of the Russian premiere version, with English titles copyrighted by Kino International Corp., and using Edmund Meisel's 1926 music score (written for the German version) played by the German Filmorchestra Babelsberg.

The 29 April 1926 version, at the Apollo Theater, Berlin, under the auspices of Prometheus Films, was heavily censored under pressure from the Weimar authorities. Nearly a hundred feet of footage was cut (the equivalent of more than 50 shots) as well as a number of title cards. This version became the basis for the copies that traveled to the United States and England, where they were further censored. The Prometheus negative was returned from Germany to the USSR after the Second World War, and became the source for official export prints from 1949 on.

Pankreutzer Potemkine, the Kino International restoration of Battleship Potemkin (1925), overseen by Enno Patalas and Anna Bohn with support from film museums in Berlin, London, and Moscow, premiered at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. This version was released on DVD in 2009 and Blu-ray in 2010, and theatrically in New York City and in the film archives' circuit in the USA and Canada.

The 1926 premiere version had no cast list other than: Members of the Proletkult Theaters, Sailors of the Black Sea Fleet, The Sebastopol Fisherman's Union and the Inhabitants of Odessa.

Pankreutzer Potemkine/Bronenosets Potiomkine is a sound version produced by Wilhelm Karl Gerst for Prometheus (Berlin), running 49 minutes at 24 fps, with German cards by Phil Jutzi and a score by composer and music conductor Edmund Meisel. This version was distributed in Berlin the 29 April 1926, and Sergei Eisenstein' attempted to see it but couldn't, because his visa expired some days before and he had to return to Moscou. Eventually he saw this version in London, in November 1929.

The video version released by Republic Pictures has a softened Odessa Steps sequence, without the child being trampled by the running crowd, and shots of the mother's silent cry and her right eye shot by a bullet through her eye-glasses. The DVD version released by Image Entertainment features the unedited sequence.