On April 2nd, 1968, the Uptown Theatre in Washington D.C. became the home for the premiere of a brand new film from director Stanley Kubrick. Just a few years earlier, Kubrick had made quite a stir with his Cold War black comedy Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, but his follow-up took on a different path, one more extreme and groundbreaking the likes of which had never been previously seen.

From the very first time that 2001: A Space Odyssey was shown to general moviegoers, it has been subjected to widespread debate over its interpretations and its view of humanity - acting as a chronicle of man's potential from primal scavenger to child among the cosmos. Kubrick worked with author Arthur C. Clarke to adapt the short story 'The Sentinel' into the project, which also spawned an accompanying novelization from Clarke to provide answers to some of the film's more abstract postulations.

It's a wonder a film like 2001 would even get made in this day and age. Coming in at the intersection of blockbuster and arthouse stylization, it would become the highest grossing film of 1968, despite worry from Metro Goldwyn Mayer that it would be a certified bomb and audiences wouldn't 'get it'. With a film like 2001, that very notion doesn't apply. Clarke himself stated "If you understand 2001 completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered."