--- title: "Stalker: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/stalker/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/stalker" critics_score: 85 critics_reviews: 10 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Stalker (1979): what the critics said Critics' score 85 from 10 reviews: 10 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative. The reviews are unanimously positive, with most critics finding Stalker absorbing precisely because it leaves so much unexplained. Praise centres on Tarkovsky’s imagery and atmosphere: the Zone’s unsettling landscapes, concentrated close-ups and carefully detailed sound give its questions about faith, identity and desire a physical presence. Critics repeatedly describe a film whose sparse science-fiction premise supports complex spiritual and philosophical enquiry, while several find its mystery compelling enough to sustain the slow pace. The differences concern interpretation and degree of enthusiasm rather than any outright rejection. Some reviews emphasise spiritual uncertainty and human longing; others find a more concrete political allegory. Sight and Sound offers the clearest reservation, finding the philosophical debate less persuasive than the imagery and the evidence of Soviet life within it. The spread is modest, with even the more qualified responses recognising the film’s visual force. ## Empire — David Parkinson Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. This is a complex, challenging work of rare beauty and power whose elusiveness is part of its fascination. It is a seminal feature from the master of atmosphere and multi-functional allegory. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/stalker-review/) ## Little White Lies — David Jenkins Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 23 May 2016. Jenkins hails Stalker as Tarkovsky's existential masterpiece exploring what it all means, with intricate detail and complexity that builds on its parable of faith and mystery. He singles out the staggering final shot that undermines everything preceding it. [Read the review](https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/stalker-andrei-tarkovsky-sculpting-time) ## RogerEbert.com — Brian Tallerico Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 25 July 2017. Tarkovsky’s epic masterpiece remains riveting decades later for its timeless themes of identity and purpose, delivered through a mesmerizing visual language. The recent digital restoration makes it feel like experiencing the film anew. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/home-entertainment-consumer-guide-july-27-2017) ## Slant Magazine — Nick Schager Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 12 July 2017. The critic praises Tarkovsky’s transfixing spiritual thriller as a dense, complex allegory about faith, consciousness, and human desire, highlighting its masterful close-ups and oblique philosophical ruminations. The review singles out the Criterion Blu-ray’s revelatory 2K restoration for finally rendering the Zone’s foreboding beauty and sonic details as originally intended. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/stalker-bd/) ## Los Angeles Times — Mark Olsen Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 18 May 2017. The rerelease of Stalker provides a fresh opportunity to appreciate its hypnotic, enigmatic adventure and hypnotic pull as a revelation among Tarkovsky’s works. Its enveloping, philosophical sci-fi world and distinctive score stand out as particularly compelling on the big screen. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-tarkovsky-stalker-solaris-review-20170518-story.html) ## The New Yorker — Alex Ross Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 8 February 2021. Stalker has become Tarkovsky’s most celebrated work, a cryptic yet influential slow-cinema landmark that contrasts an ashen world with the verdant Zone and has inspired pop-culture phenomena. Its hyper-abstract thriller elements and reaffirmation of certain philosophical ideas are singled out amid broader discussion of the director’s legacy. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/15/the-drenching-richness-of-andrei-tarkovsky) ## Sight and Sound — Gilbert Adair Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 1981. Adair praises Tarkovsky's film as a powerful political allegory set in the Soviet Union, with vivid, Dostoevskyan visuals that testify to dissident realities and the ravages of ordinary communism. He finds the philosophical debate weaker than the concrete imagery and the wife's direct interjection to camera. [Read the review](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/reviews/releases/gilbert-adair-stalker-and-et.php) ## /Film — Debopriyaa Dutta Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 5 April 2023. What Tarkovsky manages to do with Stalker is astounding — he invests a rather straightforward premise with layers of thematic richness that feel like a labyrinth of co-existing philosophies, interpretations, and meaning-making. Rarely has a sci-fi film been so hyperaware of the rot at the core of its baffling premise, and succeeded in offering a terrifying, yet hopeful dystopian tale about the futility of human desires. [Read the review](https://www.slashfilm.com/1248381/westworld-annihilation-andrei-tarkovskys-stalker/) ## Eye for Film — Amber Wilkinson Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 23 May 2002. Tarkovsky's Stalker is a film which makes you rethink your perceptions and encourages you to ponder deeper questions of humanity. The eponymous Stalker makes his living by leading people into a mysterious Zone, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/stalker-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson) ## The Playlist — Rodrigo Perez Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 6 July 2011. While Solaris is probably Tarkovsky’s most well-known film because of its genre associations and its 2002 remake, the post-apocalyptic setting of Stalker holds just as many genre trappings, but is arguably more successful (the filmmaker himself asserted as much). As enigmatic and mysterious as any of Tarkovsky’s pictures, like in Solaris, the vague sci-fi-ish elements give it enough narrative to make it one of his most engaging pictures, yet it never compromises in grappling with the metaphysical and spiritual themes that haunt all of his work. [Read the review](https://theplaylist.net/the-films-of-andrei-tarkovsky-a-retrospective-20110706/3/) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/stalker.md