Stalker is a 1979 Soviet science fantasy 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 illegally as a "Stalker", someone who leads people through "the Zone", an area where normal laws of physics supposedly do not apply, and remains of seemingly extraterrestrial activity exist among its ruins. At the heart of the Zone lies a "Room" that is said to grant the wishes of anyone who steps inside. The government has fenced off the Zone, subjecting Stalkers to harsh prison time if caught crossing the border.