Best movies of all time

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Science fiction

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.

《2001 太空漫游》

        有史以来最伟大的电影始于两位杰出人才的相遇：斯坦利·库布里克和科幻预言家亚瑟·C·克拉克。当Clarke的名字与Isaac Asimov、Robert A Heinlein和Ray Bradbury的名字一起出现时，Kubrick指出：“我知道他是一个住在印度某处树上的疯子。”Clarke实际上住在锡兰（不是在印度，也不是一棵树），但这对夫妇相遇了，成功了，并锻造了一个关于技术进步和灾难（你好，HAL）的故事，这个故事沉浸在人性中，充满了它的辉煌、软弱、勇气和疯狂的野心。一群石头观众，被其令人眼花缉的《星际之门》序列和开创性的视觉效果所震撼，将其作为一部宠物电影。如果不是他们，2001年可能会变得默默无闻，但很难想象它会留在那里。50多年来，库布里克对未来的可怕临床愿景——人工智能和所有——仍然具有预言性。

2. The Godfather (1972)

· Thriller 

From the wise guys of Goodfellas to The Sopranos, all crime dynasties that came after The Godfather are descendants of the Corleones: Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus is the ultimate patriarch of the Mafia genre. A monumental opening line (“I believe in America”) sets the operatic Mario Puzo adaptation in motion, before Coppola’s epic morphs into a chilling dismantling of the American dream. The corruption-soaked story follows a powerful immigrant family grappling with the paradoxical values of reign and religion; those moral contradictions are crystallized in a legendary baptism sequence, superbly edited in parallel to the murdering of four rivaling dons. With countless iconic details—a horse’s severed head, Marlon Brando’s wheezy voice, Nino Rota’s catchy waltz—The Godfather’s authority lives on.

《教父》

       从《好家伙》的智者到《黑道家族》，《教父》之后的所有犯罪王朝都是柯里昂的后裔：弗朗西斯·福特·科波拉的巨作是黑手党流派的终极族长。在科波拉的史诗演变成令人不寒而栗的美国梦解体之前，不朽的开场白（“我相信美国”）使歌剧《马里奥·普佐》的改编开始了。这个腐败的故事讲述了一个强大的移民家庭与统治和宗教的矛盾价值观作斗争；这些道德矛盾在传奇的洗礼序列中结晶，与四名竞争对手的唐被谋杀同时进行了精湛的编辑。凭借无数的标志性细节——一匹马被砍断的头，马龙·白兰度的喘息声，尼诺·罗塔朗朗朗朗上口的华尔兹——教父的权威依然存在。

3. Citizen Kane (1941)

Drama