Stanley Kubrick's 1968 meditation on mankind's future place in the universe is one of the most influential of all sci-fi films. A symphony of big ideas and challenging questions about the evolution of humanity and technology, over 50 years on Kubrick’s masterpiece continues to linger on in the mind like a riddle.

Spanning across four movements from the Dawn of Man to a mission to Jupiter, computers and humans search for the truth behind a collection of ancient black monoliths with supernatural properties and unknown origins. When Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and other astronauts are sent on a mysterious mission, their ship's computer system, HAL, begins to display increasingly strange behaviour, leading up to a tense showdown between man and machine, resulting in a mind-bending trek through space and time.

Examining the effects of isolation on the sole traveller and asking questions about our use, interaction with and reliance on technology for the continuation of our very existence, 2001 terrifyingly foretells humanity’s struggle to wield ultimate power over machines when removed from our grounded place on Earth.

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