10 Mind-Bending Sci-Fi Movies That Will Melt Your Brain

2. Stalker (1979)

It's hard to know what to make of Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky's strange and incomparable 1979 science fiction masterpiece.

Across the span of 163 dream-like minutes, it tells the story of a man known only as "the Stalker," hired by a scientist and a writer to guide them across a mysterious, contaminated section of land called "The Zone" which has been sealed off by the government. Their intention is to track down a mysterious room where wishes are rumoured to come true.

Stalker is a slow movie that cares little for its audience's patience; there are countless long, unbroken shots consisting of nothing but the three main characters caught in conversation, pondering the meaning of life - and the promise of The Zone. But the atmosphere is what makes Stalker so brilliantly eerie from start to finish. The tone is relentlessly uncomfortable - an aspect that only increases as the trio come closer and closer to their final destination.

Stalker contains some of the most beautiful shots ever committed to celluloid, and Tarkovsky's vision of the dour future remains one of cinema's most vividly-rendered. Like "The Zone" itself, it's very much a mind-bending film that you can quietly obsess over.