2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Stanley Kubrick’s grand vision of mankind’s journey from its hominid beginnings to its star-child evolution is a towering achievement of science-fiction cinema.

A year before the first moon landing, Stanley Kubrick envisioned an outer space where vast spacecraft revolve weightlessly to the strains of Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube waltz. 2001 revolutionised the depiction of the cosmos on film, at the same time – with the HAL-9000 computer that fatally malfunctions during a mission to Jupiter – sounding a warning about unbridled technological advance.

Beginning with primordial apes discovering tools and climaxing with astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) travelling beyond the limits of the known universe, Kubrick’s film was an intellectual (and psychedelic) event in the late 1960s. A ‘match cut’ which quickly replaces a bone thrown upwards by an ape with a similarly shaped spaceship floating through space, thereby compressing millennia of human evolution, is justly celebrated.

“‘If Kubrick could get rid of the human element, he could make the perfect film,’ joked Malcolm McDowell. But here, he almost does. By acting, arrogantly, as if nobody had ever made a really good science-fiction film before, Kubrick solves all the genre’s problems methodically but also pushes it into epic, mythic, spiritual terrain. It’s stately, bold, astonishingly beautiful. The great rationalist suddenly blasts us off into a psychedelic experience which doesn’t yield fully to reason. It’s not even certain if the film is optimistic or despairing (yet colourful).” David Cairns

“Kubrick’s epic contemplation on the nature and origins of humanity remains one of cinema’s greatest technical feats, and one of its most poetic and awe-inspiring.” Stuart Brown

“Human evolution, both physical and spiritual, translated into confoundingly hypnotic imagery.” Alan Mattli

“2001: A Space Odyssey created a vocabulary from a vacuum; there was nothing like it before or after. It does that with so much majesty, so much intrigue, yet it manages to go into a very deep philosophical, even spiritual, personal space.” Bedatri Choudhury

“It took the art of film somewhere it had never been before, and nothing has gone anywhere near it since.” Eric Hynes

“A space opera of the most ambitious kind. Kubrick weds his stunning imagery to a beautiful soundtrack and creates something that can only be cinema.” John Bleasdale

“A bold and confident work that makes no apologies for its bombast, and nor should it: this is cinema at its operatic peak.” David Heslin

“At the same time a science-fiction spectacle, an anthropological speculation and a philosophical meditation, Kubrick’s film created an unavoidable monolith in its genre.” Carlos Alberto De Mattos

“2001 is far beyond a technical achievement – it is a gateway to a vast universe where mankind is infinitesimal.” Naman Ramachandran

“Almost incomprehensibly massive, not just in its scope and scale but in its ideas and philosophies. It’s a genre movie asking the biggest of questions and it has a scary computer to boot.” Rosie Fletcher

“Retains its power to fill the mind with mystery and wonder, your head forever tilted skywards.” Peter Howell

1968 USA, United Kingdom
Directed by
Stanley Kubrick
Produced by
Stanley Kubrick
Written by
Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke
Featuring
Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester
Running time
141 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for 2001: A Space Odyssey

Critics

Mohammed Hashem Abdel-Salam
Egypt
Panos Achtsioglou
Greece
Rommy Albers
Netherlands
Neta Alexander
USA
Sitora Alieva
Russia
Tunico Amâncio
Brazil
Diego Andaluz
US/Mexico
João Antunes
Portugal
Anjelika Artyukh
Russia
Abbas Baharloo
Iran
Nicolas Barbano
Denmark
Eurico de Barros
Portugal
Abbey Bender
USA
John Berra
UK
Eddie Bertozzi
Italy
Ranjita Biswas
India
John Bleasdale
UK/Italy
Marco de Blois
Canada
Guido Bonsaver
Italy/UK
Stuart Brown
UK
Gian Piero Brunetta
Italy
David Cairns
UK
Per Juul Carlsen
Denmark
Robert Cashill
USA
Karen Chan
Singapore
Llewella Chapman
UK
Godfrey Cheshire
USA
Pip Chodorov
USA/France
Sam Clements
UK
David Cox
UK
Jake Cunningham
UK
Bedatri D. Choudhury
India/US
Mike D'Angelo
USA
Alex Davidson
UK
Phil De Semlyen
UK
Nenad Dukić
Serbia
Pierre Eisenreich
France
Lorenzo Esposito
Italy
Dan and Edna Fainaru
Israel
Arman Fatić
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Rosie Fletcher
UK
Antonio Gonçalves Jr
Brazil
Ed Gonzalez
USA
Jamie Graham
UK
Tim Grierson
USA
Thomas Groh
Germany
Toby Haggith
UK
Julian Hanich
Netherlands
Mark Harris
USA
David Heslin
Australia
Jordan Hoffman
USA
Peter Howell
Canada
Teresa Huang
Taiwan
Eric Hynes
USA
Trevor Johnston
UK
Kent Jones
USA
Tina Kalinić
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Sascha Keilholz
Germany
Dimitris Kerkinos
Greece
Jihoon Kim
South Korea
Jordan King
UK
Chris Knight
Canada
Robert Koehler
USA
Eric Kohn
USA
Michael Koresky
USA
Richard Koszarski
USA
Nino Kovačić
Croatia
Mario Kozina
Croatia
Ivan Kozlenko
Ukraine
Karen Krizanovich
UK
Amir Labaki
Brazil
Matthias Lerf
Switzerland
Laura Lux
Luxembourg
Kevin Lyons
UK
Peter Machen
Germany
David Marriot
USA
Alan Mattli
Switzerland
Carlos Alberto Mattos
Brazil
Matt Maytum
UK
Craig McLean
UK
Tom McSorley
Canada
Benjamin Mercer
USA
Christian Monggaard
Denmark
Brogan Morris
UK
Bogdan Movileanu
Romania
Clodualdo ("Doy") del Mundo
Philippines
Emily Murray
UK
Susan Napier
USA
Santiago Navajas
Spain
Marko Njegić
Croatia
Derek O'Connor
Ireland
Tambay Obenson
USA
Dejan Ognjanović
Serbia
Jacob Perlin
USA
Vladan Petković
Serbia/Croatia
Alberto Pezzotta
Italy
Maria Assunta Pimpinelli
Italy
Dana Polan
USA
Stephen Puddicombe
UK
Naman Ramachandran
UK/India
Jeff Reichert
USA
Pia Reiser
Austria
Esteve Riambau Möller
Spain
Jonathan Ross
UK
Rainer Rother
Germany
Philippe Rouyer
France
Ronald Rovers
Netherlands
Arjun Sajip
UK
Giulio Sangiorgio
Italy
Pablo O. Scholz
Argentina
Ariel Schweitzer
France/Israel
Barbara Schweizerhof
Germany
Youssef Shazli
Egypt
Leigh Singer
UK
Gavin Smith
USA
Janet Staiger
USA
Jez Stewart
UK
Richard I Suchenski
USA
Ran Tal
Israel
Arthur Tennøe
Norway
Pete Tombs
UK
Nuria Vidal
Spain
K. F. Watanabe
USA
Michael Wedel
Germany
Norm Wilner
Canada
Damon Wise
UK
Geoffrey Wong
Hong Kong
Janusz Wróblewski
Poland
Gregory Zinman
USA
Matt Zoller Seitz
USA

Directors

Shola Amoo
UK
Babak Anvari
UK
Olivier Assayas
France
Colm Bairéad
Ireland
Gan Bi
China
Andrew Birkin
UK
Robert Connolly
Australia
Alex Cox
US
Hope Dickson Leach
UK
Michaël Dudok de Wit
Robert Eggers
USA
Atom Egoyan
Canada
Lorcan Finnegan
Ireland
Kantarama Gahigiri
Rwanda
James Gray
Mark Gustafson
USA
Lucile Hadžihalilović
france
Margo Harkin
Don Hertzfeldt
USA
Isamu Hirabayashi
Japan
Joanna Hogg
UK
Armando Iannucci
Uk
Barry Jenkins
USA
Asif Kapadia
UK
Richard Kelly
USA
Rainer Kohlberger
Germany/Austria
Karyn Kusama
USA
Hicham Lasri
Morocco
Sebastián Lelio
Chile
Jackie Lentzou
Greece
Ruijun Li
China
David Lowery
USA
Richie Mehta
UK/India/Canada
Marcos Mereles
UK
Robert Morgan
UK
Brett Morgen
USA
Amir Naderi
Iran/USA
Călin Peter Netzer
Gaspar Noé
France
John Paizs
Canada
Panah Panahi
Iran
Babak Payami
Iran/Canada
Laura Poitras
USA
Pen-ek Ratanaruang
Thailand
Raymond Red
Philippines
Farid Rodríguez Rivero
Peru
Bernard Rose
UK/USA
Rob Savage
UK
Robert Schwentke
USA
Martin Scorsese
Subrata Sen
India
Ben Sharrock
UK
Chris Shepherd
United Kingdom
Jon Spira
UK
Chaitanya Tamhane
India
Rama Thiaw
Senegal
Phil Tippett
USA
Joachim Trier
Norway
Peter Tscherkassky
Austria
Ti West
USA
Edgar Wright
UK
Shengze Zhu
China/USA

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