His trademarks are a specific film poetics, unconventional dramatic structure, slow camera and visual impressionability.  
In early 1950’s he began studying Arabic language in Moscow but he never graduated. He decided to pursue a film career and enrolled to the VGIK film school in Moscow, department of directing. At the time he was interested in films by the Italian neorealist and French new wave directors, as well as directors such as Akira Kurosawa, Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Andrzej Wajda and Kenji Mizoguchi. He co-directed his first short feature film The Killers (Ubiytsy, 1956) with Aleksander Gordon during his studies and it was based on the short story by Ernest Hemingway. Gordon and his next short feature was There Will Be No Leave Today (1959). He made his short feature debut with the film The Steamroller and the Violin (Katok i skripka, 1960) and I won the first prize at the Festival of Student Films in New York in 1961. He got the opportunity to direct his first feature length film after the director Eduard Abalov abandoned the filming of the film Ivan’s Childhood (Ivanovo detstvo, 1962). Tarkovsky learned about this project from the director of photography Vadim Yusov with whom he worked on this and many other films. His debut was a big success ad gained sympathy from the audience (this was one of his most successful films) as well as the interest of film critics (the film won the Golden Lion in Venice). Four years later he directed the biopic Andrei Rublev (1966) about the great Russian painter of icons from the 15th century. After its first and last screening in Moscow, the Soviet government forced the director to change the film more than once and thus there exist several versions of the film. However, the film was shown in Cannes 1969 and it won the FIPRESCI award. It was first shown in Russia in 1971 in a censored version. Over the years, the film became one of his best ones as well as one of the best films in the entire film history. In 1972, he directed the sci-fi Solaris (1972), adaptation of Russian writer Stanisław Lem’s novel, which was popular with the audience and critics alike in Russia and abroad.  It won the FIPRESCI award and the jury’s award in Cannes in 1972. In the party autobiographical film The Mirror (Zerkalo, 1975), through a complex family story, Tarkovsky offered a historical overview of Russia before WW II until early 1970’s. In this film he used his own father, famous poet and translator Arseniy Tarkovsky, who sang songs and narrated the story. His mother and second wife Larisa appear also in smaller roles. He spent a lot of time struggling to finish this film and finally after 32 versions, approved the 33th edited version of this film. Soviet government classified this films to a “third category”, thus limiting its distribution in film theaters and preventing its screening in Cannes. In December 1976, he directed Hamlet in the theatre in Moscow. He had to partly re-film his sci-fi thriller Stalker (1979) after most of the exterior shorts were destroyed in the film lab. In spite of many other production difficulties, the film was eventually finalized and won the award of the ecumenical jury in Cannes. In 1979, he began to work on his new film The First Day, but after finishing its first half, he encountered difficulties from the state censorship office. The story goes that he was so upset by censorship that he destroyed most of the film. During the summer of 1979, together with the Italian screenplay writer Tonino Guerro, he co-directed the documentary Voyage in Time (Tempo di viaggio) in Italy. Together with Guerro he wrote the screenplay for the drama Nostalgia (1983) about a Russian poet who travels through Italy researching the life of a Russian composer from the 18th century. Because of this film he returned to Italy and then defected to Europe. At the Cannes Film Festival the film won the FIPRESCI award as well as the ecumenical jury’s award and the award for best director (together with Robert Bresson for L'argent, 1983). In 1983 in the Royal Opera House in London, he directed the opera Boris Godunov. While preparing his next film Sacrifice (1984) at the press conference in Milan, he said that he would never return to the Soviet Union. He directed Sacrifice in Sweden working Ingmar Bergman’s collaborators. Late that year, he was diagnosed with a severe case of lung cancer. The film won several awards in Cannes and at some other film festivals, but due to his health issues, Tarkovsky did not attend the ceremonies. He died in late 1986 in Paris dduring treatment. There was controversy around his death and there was speculation that he was murdered by the KGB because of his “anti-Soviet propaganda”. His second wife Larisa and his usual collaborator, actor Anatoliy Solonitsyn died from the same kind of lung tumor. Tarkovsky kept a diary and it was published after his death 1989 in German, in 1991 in English and in 2008 in Russian. He wrote a book about theory of film "Sculpting in time" in which he put forward his view of art and film, along a review of his own life and films. Ingmar Bergman, whom Tarkovsky valued from his early age, also considered Tarkovsky as one of the most important directors of all time. He was friends with Sergei Parajanov, who dedicated his film Ashik Kerib (1988) to Tarkovsky after his death.