Anniversary Series: 2001 Space Odyssey

Written & Directed by Stanley Kubrick (1968); 139 mins, Rated G

One of the most influential of all sci-fi films—and one of the most controversial —Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 is a delicate, poetic meditation on the ingenuity—and folly—of mankind. Stanley Kubrick’s landmark 1968 epic pushed the limits of narrative and special effects toward a meditation on technology and humanity. Based on Arthur C. Clarke’s story The Sentinel, Kubrick and Clarke’s screenplay is structured in four movements. At the “Dawn of Man,” a group of hominids encounters a mysterious black monolith alien to their surroundings. To the strains of Strauss’s 1896 Also sprach Zarathustra, a hominid invents the first weapon, using a bone to kill prey. As the hominid tosses the bone in the air…the rest made film history. “[2001] endures as a monument to monumental filmmaking not because it’s asking big questions or positing big answers, but because it just looks so damn good on the big screen.” —Sonny Bunch, Washington Free Beacon