2001: A Space Odyssey

Make sure you watch Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey if you only watch one science fiction film in your life. While it's difficult, to sum up, the picture in a few words, it's best described as a meditation on human evolution—and a striking one at that, thanks to its huge scope and stunning photography.

It's also quite foresightful: While it famously dates back to the dawn of time, the majority of 2001's plot revolves around a group of men aboard a spaceship who are aided in their mission, then held hostage, by HAL 9000—a piece of AI technology that appears to have surpassed the flesh-and-blood astronauts relying on it in terms of being "human."

The film's pace is known for being glacial, yet its unique storyline and revolutionary filming techniques set it apart from practically every other film in history. It's simple to trace the origins of almost any sci-fi film released after 1968 back to Kubrick's genre classic.

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester
Runtime: 149 mins