10 Movies That Changed The Genre They Were Made In

10. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Sci-fi is a particularly open genre because it is mainly concerned with ideas. If you're making a sci-fi it can pretty much be about anything as long as you have a strong central idea to tie everything together. What makes 2001 revolutionary amongst big high-minded sci-fi stories that preceded it (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Twilight Zone) is Kubrick's incredible attention to the details that make his ideas so impactful today.

Through a somewhat ridiculous attention to the details of the world he was creating, Kubrick was able to create a fully realized environment that had never been seen in a movie before.

This led to his futuristic vision being almost unnervingly believable, which gave him the creative license to do whatever he wanted. 2001 takes complete advantage of this by taking sci-fi into deeply philosophical territory that left many filmgoers scratching their heads as they left the theatre.

This is because 2001 took sci-fi away from being a silly/often looked over genre and proved it deserves to be held in more esteem than your typical B movie. Kubrick's film was so revolutionary that filmmakers today are still using it as a guide to understanding what makes a movie great.