The Sacrifice

Set in the final hours before a nuclear war threatens to wipe out humanity, Andrei Tarkovsky's visionary final film is a visually breathtaking meditation on existential terror and a melancholic swan song from one of cinema's true auteurs. Erland Josephson, in an award-winning role, plays retired actor Alexander who is celebrating his birthday with family and friends when a crackly TV announcement warns of an imminent nuclear catastrophe. By the time Tarkovsky started work on his final film, he knew he was seriously ill with cancer. Among many other awards, it won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1986, but Tarkovsky was too ill to attend. When he died 9 months later in Paris, The Sacrifice completed one of the finest oeuvres in cinema history and cemented his place as one of the most visionary, celebrated and influential filmmakers of all time.