Tom Hanks has long pointed to Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science-fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey as his top pick when asked about his favourite movie.
The actor has talked about the film repeatedly over the years, telling Collider in 2012 he'd watched it roughly 120 times and listing it alongside other favourites like Fargo and The Best Years of Our Lives.
Hanks admires 2001 for taking audiences somewhere they'd never been before, and he highlights its ambition and visual daring.
The picture enjoyed an unusually long theatrical life — reportedly running in cinemas for about four and a half years.
He also recalled the first time he saw the movie in a 2023 interview, remembering a cold, rainy Sunday in November 1968 and saying the experience left a powerful impression.
During promotion for Cloud Atlas in 2012, Hanks referenced 2001 again, noting how later filmmakers have aimed to match its sense of novelty and scope.
Directed by Kubrick and co-written with Arthur C.
Clarke, 2001 explores big ideas: human evolution, artificial intelligence and the vastness of space.
Its loose narrative moves from prehistoric apes and an enigmatic monolith to a lunar discovery and a mission toward Jupiter complicated by the HAL 9000 computer.
Although financed and set in the United States, most filming took place in Britain, with principal photography beginning in late 1965 at Shepperton and continuing at MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood.
The film divided critics and audiences on release, but it has since become a cornerstone of science-fiction cinema.
It earned four Academy Award nominations and won for Best Visual Effects — the only Oscar Kubrick received in his career.
Hanks has also joked about the film's cerebral nature, suggesting that marketing teams often prefer simpler, more conventional hooks, while 2001 chose to challenge and astonish its viewers instead.
