The greatest film ever made began with the meeting of two brilliant minds: Stanley Kubrick and sci-fi seer Arthur C Clarke. ‘I understand he’s a nut who lives in a tree in India somewhere,’ noted Kubrick when Clarke’s name came up – along with those of Isaac Asimov, Robert A Heinlein and Ray Bradbury – as a possible writer for his planned sci-fi epic. Clarke was actually living in Ceylon (not in India, or a tree), but the pair met, hit it off, and forged a story of technological progress and disaster (hello, HAL) that’s steeped in humanity, in all its brilliance, weakness, courage and mad ambition. An audience of stoners, wowed by its eye-candy Star Gate sequence and pioneering visuals, adopted it as a pet movie. Were it not for them, 2001 might have faded into obscurity, but it’s hard to imagine it would have stayed there. Kubrick’s frighteningly clinical vision of the future – AI and all – still feels prophetic, more than 50 years on.
What makes a great movie? We could try to come up with some rubric for determining if a film deserves to be considered one of the best ever. But the truth is that it’s all subjective, and one person’s Citizen Kane is another’s Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, or vice versa. (Hey, it’s possible.) Everybody’s personal canon is different. It’s by individual taste, experiences and that intangible feeling that comes when a piece of art embeds itself in your heart. In other words, you know an all-time classic when you see it.
One thing to consider, though? Rewatchability. The best movies truly do age like wine, and even the oldest films on this list will seem as fresh watched today as the day they first premiered. That’s why repertory cinemas play such a crucial role in film appreciation – seeing a movie on the big screen, decades or even a century after its initial release, is a significant means of differentiating the greatest from the merely great. And so, once you finish perusing our selection of the greatest films ever made, consider seeking them out at one of the world’s legendary cinemas, whether it’s the New Beverly in Los Angeles, Le Champo in Paris or Prince Charles Cinema in central London. You won’t regret it.
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