Stalker is a 1979 Soviet science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky with a screenplay written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, loosely based on their 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. The film tells the story of an expedition led by a figure known as the "Stalker" (Alexander Kaidanovsky), who guides his two clients—a melancholic writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) and a professor (Nikolai Grinko)—through a hazardous wasteland to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the "Zone", where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person's innermost desires. The film combines elements of science fiction and fantasy with dramatic, philosophical, and psychological themes.

Plot

A man works as a "Stalker", leading people through the "Zone", an area where the normal laws of physics do not apply, and remnants of seemingly extraterrestrial activity lie undisturbed among its ruins. At the heart of the Zone lies a "Room," which is said to grant the wishes of anyone who steps inside. The Zone contains ominous, supernatural hazards. The government bans anyone from entering the Zone and subjects Stalkers to long prison sentences if caught.