Popular reviews

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★★ 33

  Dear College-Age Matt Singer, who thinks this movie is long, boring, and pretentious:

  You’re a fucking idiot.

  Love,
  Your Older, Smarter Self.

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★★ 63

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Ever since I joined Letterboxd, nothing has scared me more than the idea of trying to write about 2001: A Space Odyssey. The fact that everything has "already been said" about this masterpiece has itself already been said so many times that there's not even an original means of expressing my lack of originality left at my disposal. So with the knowledge that I will probably never be able to fully encapsulate what makes this my favorite movie of all time—let alone say something truly unique about it—here is a small list of a few things I love about it.

  I love that the monolith has remained an enigmatic symbol capable of being read in any number of different ways…

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  Review by Mary Conti ½ 381

  2001:A Space Odyssey is quite simply the worst thing to happen to cinema ever. Its forced profundity has caused millions of people all over the world to force themselves to like what is quite simply nothing more than an exercise in style.

  Kubrick has no idea what he is doing here. His film jumps around with little to no sense of unity. The great film makers of the world create a series of events that contain clarity of information, something Kubrick couldn't bet his life on.

  What is the purpose of what is going on here? Is there any coherent message? I have heard suggestions that it is Kubrick's message about the future of humanity, but what future is that? Does Kubrick even know?

  This is Transformers for the art house crowd. Pure style over substance. Nobody actually likes this film, they just like to be seen liking it.

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  Review by Lucy ★★★★★ 8

  “i can feel it. i can feel it. i can feel it”

  maybe the most monumental film in history, and even better on the big screen. and while rewatching it today, i finally realized why it hits me so hard every time: it doesn’t feel like fiction to me. i know it is, but it feels tangible, like an eventual future, even in the abstract. there’s a thread of truth running through it, sparking a fear and wonder in me that no film has ever matched in the same way, the most colossal and terrifying inevitability of our current existence: we are not alone

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  Review by karsten ★★★★★ 16

  saw it in IMAX. i know this is an unpopular opinion but this movie is great!

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  Review by former movie enjoyer ★★★★½ 2

  y'all make fun of alexa now but she's bound to snap one of these days...

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★★★ 8

  man invents tools. man becomes slave to those tools. the tools start to behave like man so man brutally murders them. man sees the cycle, sees everything and transcends—goes nuclear space baby mode. 4k disc looks very nice.

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  Review by Charlie Morris ★★½ 165

  I had a disclaimer at the top of this review but everybody went off telling me how wrong I was anyway, so scrap that, you'll just have to remember that this is merely one person's opinion and that we're all entitled to one.

  First of all, I like Kubrick's films, love some of them in fact, but I can't even pretend to like this one. Of course I understand the influence this film had on the industry in its time, but that doesn't mean that I found it enjoyable.

  It was heavy breathing and scenes of nothing (pretty nothing, nevertheless) against epic music, or sometimes even just a creepy choir, for 140 minutes straight. I wanted to switch it off…

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  Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★½ 24

  I've had this movie on Blu-Ray for maybe 4 years now and I've always been worried to watch it because it seemed like something I had to be in "the right mood" for. When a friend told me it was playing at the Arclight in 70mm, I said "fuck the mood" and bought myself a ticket, presuming that a 70mm theater screening is the best way to see this thing.

  Honestly? I still don't know if that's true. It felt like a huge experience. But this is the second time I've seen a 70mm movie in theaters (the first time being The Hateful Eight) and both times I came away thinking: it doesn't really look better to me. And with…

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  Review by siobhan ★★★★ 4

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  hal 9000 is the nastiest skank bitch i’ve ever met. do not trust him. he is a fugly slut

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★★ 24

  Everything that could have possibly been written about this film pretty much has been by now. So instead of reviewing 2001: A Space Odyssey, I'm just going to say - if you love 2001 as much as I do, here are some other films that you might enjoy:

  - The Tree of Life (2011), dir. Terrence Malick
  - Solaris (1972), dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
  - Baraka (1992), dir. Ron Fricke
  - Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), dir. Bela Tarr
  - Under the Skin (2013), dir. Jonathan Glazer
  - The Double Life of Veronique (1991), dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
  - It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012), dir. Don Hertzfeldt
  - Angel's Egg (1985), dir. Mamoru Oshii
  - Enter the Void (2009), dir. Gaspar Noe
  -…

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  Review by Aaron ★★★★★ 69

  “I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”

  In the beginning was the Monolith, and the Monolith was with God, and the Monolith was God.

  From where had the Monolith derived? It scarcely mattered. If it had always been there, then it had come from nowhere. It simply was. The nothing from which everything sprang. The animating stimulus that drove the amoeba to split in two. The force of nature that extinguished the great lizards not inclined toward avian salvation. The spark of ingenuity that made the ape stand upright and realize its potential for violent innovation.

  The Monolith was not “natural” in any traditional…