2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is Stanley Kubrick's landmark science fiction film — watch it online on iFILM. Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Kubrick's own company, the screenplay was written together with Arthur C. Clarke, expanding his short story "The Sentinel." Keir Dullea plays astronaut David Bowman, Gary Lockwood plays Frank Poole, and Douglas Rain voices the ship's AI, HAL 9000. Runtime: 149 minutes.

The Discovery crew is sent toward Jupiter on a mission whose true purpose has been kept from them. HAL 9000 — described as incapable of error — starts making decisions that endanger everyone aboard. The film spans four million years in a single cut: from a bone hurled into the air by an early human to a spacecraft docking in orbit. A black rectangular monolith keeps appearing at the moments humanity crosses into something new, and Kubrick never explains why.

The practical effects, built entirely without digital tools, earned Kubrick an Academy Award in 1969. Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth's work set the visual grammar for space cinema for decades. Kubrick replaced the commissioned score at the last minute with Strauss, Ligeti, and Khachaturian — a choice that still sounds right. One of the few films that genuinely changed what cinema could ask of an audience. Stream 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) online on iFILM.