Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky's feature films were not widely seen, yet he emerged from Soviet Russia as one of their best filmmakers. These days, he's most famous for Stalkers, his 1979 version of the science fiction classic, Roadside Picnic. He began making movies in the late 1950s, and earned international acclaim for 1962's Ivan's Childhood. Tarkovsky's career after that was a mixture of applause from foreign critics and frowns and obstacles from his own government. Nonetheless, he completed several films that have since wowed critics and earned him a reputation as an inspired genius. His films include Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972, based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem), The Mirror (1975), Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986). Andrei Tarkovsky died of lung cancer at the age of 54.