Hard to Be a God

The towering swan song of Russian auteur Aleksei German is a dreamlike adaptation of the beloved 1964 sci-fi novel by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (the screenwriters of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker). A scientist is sent from Earth to the planet Arkanar—which bears a striking resemblance to the Middle Ages—to stop the killing of intellectuals, only to be swept up by the natives’ bedlam and brutality. A passion project decades in the making, this gorgeous epic grips audiences with the same fervor that consumed its legendary creator, who passed away just months before the film’s completion.