Its a great film. I really like Mirror as well so I'd recommend that next. Its also shot wonderfully.

The locations from stalker are amazing, but unfortunately some of them were actually toxic and it's assumed that's what caused Tarkovsky's cancer.

Tarkovsky got pretty much all he would ask for to make his films, but if you want to see a real "blank check" type film, the multi part War and Peace adaption is unbelievable in how much they were given to do it.

The USSR was a great place to be an artist tbh, even considering certain limitations.