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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

tomatometer

97

Average Rating: 8.9/10
Reviews Counted: 58
Fresh: 56 | Rotten: 2

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.

85

Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 13
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 2

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.

audience

86

liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 287,096

My Rating

Movie Info

A mind-bending sci-fi symphony, 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

Aug 25, 1998

Warner Bros. Pictures

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All Critics (58) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (56) | Rotten (2) | DVD (34)

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is some sort of great film, and an unforgettable endeavor. Technically and imaginatively, what he put into it is staggering.

January 14, 2013
New Yorker
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The film's projections of the cold war and antiquated product placements may look quaint now, but the poetry is as hard-edged and full of wonder as ever.

May 8, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comments (2)
Chicago Reader
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It was a freshening attitude then, though its long-term effects haven't been all to the good.

May 8, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comments (6)
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

For all the essential coldness of Kubrick's vision, it demands attention as superior sci-fi, simply because it's more concerned with ideas than with Boy's Own-style pyrotechnics.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It is an extraordinary, obsessive, beautiful work of art.

July 20, 2002 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | Comments (2)
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Yup, you guessed it -- a religious experience.

November 21, 2001 Full Review Source: San Jose Mercury News | Comments (2)
San Jose Mercury News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

...reaches for the stars and finds itself, against all odds, on the other side of them.

September 8, 2013 Full Review Source: LarsenOnFilm
LarsenOnFilm

Matched Kubrick's photographic eye to a story about watching, transformed him into a director of the epic, and made one giant leap in sci-fi cinema that's never been matched.

January 12, 2012 Full Review Source: Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)

Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the greatest films of all time and it is the director's most profound and confounding exploration of humanity's relationship to technology, violence, sexuality and social structures.

June 3, 2011 Full Review Source: Cinema Autopsy | Comments (8)
Cinema Autopsy

Perhaps the beauty of 2001 is appreciating that some of the best stories are the ones that are half-told.

September 16, 2010 Full Review Source: Film Snobbery | Comments (2)
Film Snobbery

With his virtuosic adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's novel, Stanley Kubrick invented the modern science fiction film.

September 3, 2010 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comments (6)
ColeSmithey.com

Kubrick's sci-fi masterpiece is still relevant.

August 26, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media

Kubrick set out to make "the proverbial good science-fiction film," but he came out the other side with something far more ornery and profound.

September 29, 2008 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com
eFilmCritic.com

Central to the profundity of the film is the notion that few things are more meaningful than a child's first steps, the emotive impact of this scenario manifest in every one of the film's dizzying set pieces, albeit multiplied to epic proportions.

November 19, 2007 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine

2001 certainly is a colossal bore, unless you're on its wavelength, in which case it's one of the greatest films of all time.

November 8, 2007 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | Comments (17)
Filmcritic.com

Prepare to be dazzled.

October 2, 2007 Full Review Source: Film4
Film4

It has reached the status of Art, meaning that it's going to go on provoking strong opinions.

April 8, 2006 Full Review Source: DVDJournal.com | Comments (2)
DVDJournal.com

What else can such a film be called but ART?

March 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Cinemania

Still one of the best

March 29, 2006

Part space opera, part cinematic symphony and part horror story, the film is a shape-shifting painting.

March 20, 2006 Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star
Arizona Daily Star

The most influential sci-fi film ever made, 2001 caused culture shock when released, forever changing the conventions, style, and prestige of the previously debased genre

August 13, 2005 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

Une leçon de cinéma par l'un de ses plus grands artisans.

July 27, 2005 Full Review Source: Panorama

Audience Reviews for 2001: A Space Odyssey

With an extraordinary production design and cinematography - which includes mind-blowing photographic effects - this impressive work of poetic contemplation depicts Nietzsche's philosophical concept of the Übermensch in a truly majestic cinematic experience.
November 4, 2009
blacksheepboy

Super Reviewer

A fantastic film about the meditation of technology and evolution of man with a fantastic villain, fantastic effects for the time and great actors
October 28, 2012
michael e.
Michael Edwards

Super Reviewer

    1. Bowman: HAL 9000: Good morning, Dave.
    – Submitted by David G (2 months ago)
    1. Bowman: Open the pod bay doors please, HAL.
    – Submitted by Dutch E (6 months ago)
    1. HAL 9000: [as he is being shut down] Good afternoon... gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000... computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant [voice becomes lower & slower] in Urbana, Illinois... on the 12th of January 1992. [voice becomes even more lower & slower] My instructor was Mr. Langley... and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
    – Submitted by David E (9 months ago)
    1. HAL 9000: [to Dave] This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
    – Submitted by Jacob H (12 months ago)
    1. Dr. Heywood Floyd: I'm really not at liberty to discuss this.
    – Submitted by John H (13 months ago)
    1. Poole: I've got a bad feeling about it.
    – Submitted by Vicky S (14 months ago)
View all quotes (33)

Discussion Forum

Topic Last Post Replies
Ebert's late death. 2 months ago 2
Is Factual Legitimacy a Legitimate Concern? 4 months ago 0

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Foreign Titles

  • 2001: Odyssee im Weltraum (DE)
  • 2001 : l'odyssée de l'espace (FR)
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