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.
How do you know you’re watching a truly great movie? Trust us: if there were a formula for determining if a film deserves to be considered one of the best ever, it’d make putting together lists like this one much easier. But the truth is, greatness is highly subjective, and one person’s Citizen Kane is another’s Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, or vice versa. (Hey, it’s possible.) Everybody has different criteria, determined by individual taste, personal experience and that intangible feeling that comes when a piece of art puts a dent in your soul.
If there is any one thing that delineates a great movie from an all-time classic, though, it’s rewatchability. The best movies never get stale, no matter how many times you see them, and even the oldest films on this list will seem as fresh watched today as the day they first premiered. It’s a point that underscores the importance of repertory cinema – seeing a movie on the big screen, decades or even a century after its initial release, is a crucial element in film appreciation. 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.