A scientist investigating mysterious happenings at a derelict space station discovers that the planet below can transform memories into physical form — and bring the dead back to life. Andrei Tarkovsky’s philosophical sci-fi masterpiece was the Russian answer to Kubrick’s 2001.
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Something has gone wrong on the space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris: one member of the crew is dead, while the two survivors are sending strange, nonsensical messages back to Earth. Arriving at the station to investigate, psychologist Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) makes a startling discovery: Solaris is actually an immense intelligence that is capable of drawing forth one's fears and desires and bringing them to vivid, physical life. Kelvin is soon faced with the "return" of his long-dead wife, Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk) — but is she real or only a construct patched together from his memories? And does it even matter as long as she stays? Adapting Stanislaw Lem's classic novel, Tarkovsky's Solaris is a visually stunning and philosophically profound work that ranks with Kubrick's 2001 as a pinnacle of science-fiction cinema.