2001: A Space Odyssey
Academy Award × 1·AFI #15·BFI #6·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
What critics thought
Kubrick's film was genuinely divisive on release — not a slow build to universal admiration but a genuine war between critics who found it visionary and those who found it pretentious and inert. Over time, popular and critical opinion have shifted decisively toward the former camp, with directors in particular now ranking it among the greatest films ever made, but the original negative reviews were serious and numerous, not mere philistinism.
“some kind of great film, and an unforgettable endeavor ... The film is hypnotically entertaining, and it is funny without once being gaggy, but it is also rather harrowing.”
Penelope Gilliatt·The New Yorker
“a film that is so dull, it even dulls our interest in the technical ingenuity for the sake of which Kubrick has allowed it to become dull”
Stanley Kauffmann·The New Republic
“a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines ... and dreadful when it deals with the in-betweens: humans ... 2001, for all its lively visual and mechanical spectacle, is a kind of space-Spartacus and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story”
John Simon·The New Leader
“[b]ig, beautiful, but plodding sci-fi epic ... A major achievement in cinematography and special effects, 2001 lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree and only conveys suspense after the halfway mark”
Robert B. Frederick·Variety
“the picture that science fiction fans of every age and in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future ... it is a milestone, a landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film.”
Charles Champlin·Los Angeles Times
Genres
Adventure, Sci-Fi
Cast & Crew
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringKeir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Douglas Rain, Daniel Richter
2001: A Space Odyssey
Academy Award × 1·AFI #15·BFI #6·National Film Registry
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.
What critics thought
Kubrick's film was genuinely divisive on release — not a slow build to universal admiration but a genuine war between critics who found it visionary and those who found it pretentious and inert. Over time, popular and critical opinion have shifted decisively toward the former camp, with directors in particular now ranking it among the greatest films ever made, but the original negative reviews were serious and numerous, not mere philistinism.
“some kind of great film, and an unforgettable endeavor ... The film is hypnotically entertaining, and it is funny without once being gaggy, but it is also rather harrowing.”
Penelope Gilliatt·The New Yorker
“a film that is so dull, it even dulls our interest in the technical ingenuity for the sake of which Kubrick has allowed it to become dull”
Stanley Kauffmann·The New Republic
“a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines ... and dreadful when it deals with the in-betweens: humans ... 2001, for all its lively visual and mechanical spectacle, is a kind of space-Spartacus and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story”
John Simon·The New Leader
“[b]ig, beautiful, but plodding sci-fi epic ... A major achievement in cinematography and special effects, 2001 lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree and only conveys suspense after the halfway mark”
Robert B. Frederick·Variety
“the picture that science fiction fans of every age and in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future ... it is a milestone, a landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film.”
Charles Champlin·Los Angeles Times
Genres
Adventure, Sci-Fi
Cast & Crew
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringKeir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Douglas Rain, Daniel Richter
Rent/Purchase