Image: Barbican Centre, London
The Barbican has scheduled a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 'The Sacrifice' from 2 to 6 August 2026 at Barbican Cinemas in London. The 1986 film, Tarkovsky’s final feature, is presented in the cinema programme with a description that frames it as a study of a world on the brink of nuclear war and a meditation on spirituality in a modern, technology-driven age.
According to the Barbican event listing, the film follows Alexander, played by Erland Josephson, during his idyllic birthday celebrations on a remote Swedish island. Those celebrations are interrupted by news of World War III and an imminent nuclear catastrophe, prompting him to vow to lose everything he loves if it will help avert disaster. The screening is classified 12A and runs 2 hours and 29 minutes.
The Barbican’s online season material places 'The Sacrifice' alongside a wider range of summer and autumn programming across the centre, including art, music, theatre and cinema. In that context, the film appears in a cinema lineup that also includes other film series and screenings, but the Tarkovsky title is given a specific slot within the regular Barbican Cinema schedule from 31 July to 6 August in the newsletter and 2 to 6 August on the event page.
Made in Sweden, with some of Ingmar Bergman’s long-term collaborators, 'The Sacrifice' is described by the Barbican as bearing elements of a reverie to the Swedish filmmaker while remaining unmistakably Tarkovskian in style and theme. The institution’s wording emphasizes Tarkovsky’s philosophical approach and his recurring concern with the place of spirituality in a contemporary world shaped by technology and uncertainty.
The event page identifies the film’s country of origin as Sweden/France/UK and its release year as 1986. No live introduction or accompanying programme is listed on the verified event page, and the source material does not indicate any linked talk, panel or related screening attached to this specific run.
The screening sits within the Barbican’s cinema offering at its Silk Street complex, where the venue regularly presents repertory titles and contemporary programming. The associated listing for the Barbican’s cinema spaces notes that Barbican Cinema 1 is located within the main Barbican building, while Cinemas 2 and 3 are on Beech Street. The verified event page for 'The Sacrifice' gives the location simply as Cinemas, and the event date range runs from Sunday 2 August through Thursday 6 August 2026.
The Barbican’s newsletter also places the film within a broader summer communication that mentions other upcoming events, including 'Delcy Morelos: origo', 'Outdoor Cinema', and the season devoted to Haruki Murakami. Within that round-up, 'The Sacrifice' is presented as part of the centre’s cinema strand, with the concise description: “In his final film, master of cinema Andrei Tarkovsky explores a world on the brink of nuclear war.”
