After discovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the lunar surface, mankind sets off on a quest to find its origins with help from intelligent supercomputer HAL 9000.
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Director:
Stanley Kubrick
Stars:
Jack Nicholson,
Shelley Duvall,
Danny Lloyd
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
Director:
Stanley Kubrick
Stars:
Matthew Modine,
R. Lee Ermey,
Vincent D'Onofrio
After a space merchant vessel perceives an unknown transmission as a distress call, its landing on the source moon finds one of the crew attacked by a mysterious lifeform, and they soon realize that its life cycle has merely begun.
A mentally unstable veteran works as a nighttime taxi driver in New York City, where the perceived decadence and sleaze fuels his urge for violent action by attempting to liberate a presidential campaign worker and an underage prostitute.
Director:
Martin Scorsese
Stars:
Robert De Niro,
Jodie Foster,
Cybill Shepherd
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a plan to assassinate Nazi leaders by a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers coincides with a theatre owner's vengeful plans for the same.
A Phoenix secretary embezzles forty thousand dollars from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Ellen Ripley is rescued by a deep salvage team after being in hypersleep for 57 years. The moon that the Nostromo visited has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, colonial marines have impressive firepower, but will that be enough?
Director:
James Cameron
Stars:
Sigourney Weaver,
Michael Biehn,
Carrie Henn
"2001" is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith on Earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well). Evolution then enabled humankind to reach the moon's surface, where yet another monolith is found, one that signals the monolith placers that humankind has evolved that far. Now a race begins between computers (HAL) and human (Bowman) to reach the monolith placers. The winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be.Written by
Larry Cousins
According to biographer Vincent Lobrutto, one of Stanley Kubrick's visual-and aural-inspirations was the 1960 National Film Board of Canada animated short documentary Universe (1960). The 29 minute film, which had also proved popular at NASA for its realistic portrayal of outer space, achieved "the standard of dynamic visionary realism that he was looking for." Wally Gentleman, one of the special effects artists on Universe, worked briefly on 2001. The short film's most notable influence may have been Kubrick's decision to cast the narrator of the documentary Douglas Rain, relatively unknown outside Canada, as the voice of HAL. See more »
Goofs
When Bowman is carrying out the EVA to replace the AE-35 unit, Discovery's aerial is seen rotating. Normally the aerial is directed to Earth, and unless the ship itself was changing position the aerial would appear stationary. However, the device which controls the positioning mechanisms of the aerial is the AE-35 unit-the unit being replaced. During the time Bowman is exchanging the AE-35s the aerial would have no hardware control, and there is also a small but real possibility that the replacement AE-35 might be faulty. It is reasonable to assume that the aerial would first be rotated to its default position (facing forward, away from Earth) and mechanically locked down until the new AE-35 unit is installed and checked out. The rotation visible in the scene is consistent with that. See more »
No opening credits for actors, writers, producer, director, etc. are shown, with the story beginning right after the title. Although by the 1990s it had become quite common for major films to not have opening credits, it was still unusual in 1968. See more »
Alternate Versions
The film originally premiered at 160 minutes. After the premiere, director Stanley Kubrick removed about 19 minutes' worth of scenes and made a few changes:
Some shots from the "Dawn of Man" sequence were removed and a new scene was inserted where an ape pauses with the bone it is about to use as a tool. The new scene was a low-angle shot of the monolith, done in order to portray and clarify the connection between the man-ape using the tool and the monolith.
Some shots of Frank Poole jogging in the centrifuge were removed.
An entire sequence of several shots in which Dave Bowman searches for the replacement antenna part in storage was removed.
A scene where HAL severs radio communication between the "Discovery" and Poole's pod before killing him was removed. This scene explains a line that stayed in the film in which Bowman addresses HAL on the subject.
Some shots of Poole's space walk before he is killed were removed.
This movie is certainly one of the greatest films ever made. It is a story told in a steady pace, told mostly not by words but by cinematic means of expression. Perfect blend of spectacular special effects and classical music bring to life creations of human imagination in both realistic and poetical way. The story itself is quite simple at a first glance. As the title implies, there is an archetypal journey, a motive repeated for thousands of years. This motive was always used not only to depict a trip in space and time, and beyond, but also had rich philosophic meaning. The film is a poetical contemplation of most exciting eternal questions. It is not just an odyssey of a person; it is an odyssey of our species. The film is great by itself, yet, in my case, the impression from it will always be mingled with that from the book. I've read it at the age of 10, really not thinking about problems like 'what is the relationship between evolution of humankind and development of human morality'. But the impression was great enough to make me fall for entire genre of science fiction.
The day I learned '2001' got only special effects Oscar and was not even nominated for the Best Picture was the day when 'Academy Award' completely became two words meaning nothing to me.
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This movie is certainly one of the greatest films ever made. It is a story told in a steady pace, told mostly not by words but by cinematic means of expression. Perfect blend of spectacular special effects and classical music bring to life creations of human imagination in both realistic and poetical way. The story itself is quite simple at a first glance. As the title implies, there is an archetypal journey, a motive repeated for thousands of years. This motive was always used not only to depict a trip in space and time, and beyond, but also had rich philosophic meaning. The film is a poetical contemplation of most exciting eternal questions. It is not just an odyssey of a person; it is an odyssey of our species. The film is great by itself, yet, in my case, the impression from it will always be mingled with that from the book. I've read it at the age of 10, really not thinking about problems like 'what is the relationship between evolution of humankind and development of human morality'. But the impression was great enough to make me fall for entire genre of science fiction.
The day I learned '2001' got only special effects Oscar and was not even nominated for the Best Picture was the day when 'Academy Award' completely became two words meaning nothing to me.