10 Most Shocking Jump Cuts In Film History

4. Human Evolution In A Single Cut - 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey is a technically innovative masterwork above all else, but it also features one of the most iconic and creative jump cuts in the history of cinema.

At the end of the film's opening Dawn of Man sequence, an ape learns how to use a bone as a weapon, catapulting another bone into the air, and as it rotates in the sky, Kubrick ingeniously cuts to a spaceship of a similar shape.

Though this is technically more of a match cut than a jump cut, the fact that the film literally jumps forward millions of years in time, leaping from one evolutionary epoch to another far-flung one, nevertheless makes it fit.

As a wordless commentary on human progress from early adoption of tools to flying through space, it's as unexpected as it is breathtaking, and hasn't lost any of its entrancing majesty over 50 years later.