Almost a decade after his death, the great myth of Stanley Kubrick seems as mysterious as ever. For someone so famous for being methodical and unyielding in his creative vision, his work displays an astonishing amount of flexibility, ranging from film noir (THE KILLING) to epic saga (SPARTACUS) to dark comedy (DR. STRANGELOVE) to science fiction (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) to period drama (BARRY LYNDON) to thriller (THE SHINING) to war movie (FULL METAL JACKET), with moments of indefinable brilliance (LOLITA, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) throughout. The key, of course, is that in contributing to cinema’s various genres he really tweaked them all, washing out the familiar and attacking the screen in a way that was always entirely and distinctively Kubrick.
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Films In This Series
2001: A Space Odyssey
Dr. Strangelove
The Killing
A Clockwork Orange
Paths of Glory
Spartacus
Lolita
Barry Lyndon
Full Metal Jacket
Eyes Wide Shut
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1968Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, Kubrick’s 2001 is a visionary spectacle unlike anything else in cinema, an epic of sight and sound and a pioneering moment for movie special effects.
Read more about 2001 in our Film Notes.
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1964Kubrick skewers the Cold War and the nuclear age with this black comedy masterpiece starring a brilliant Peter Sellers (playing three roles), George C. Scott, and Slim Pickens.
Read more about DR. STRANGELOVE in our Film Notes.
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1956With THE KILLING, Kubrick delivers a noir classic (based on the novel Clean Break by Lionel White) about a racetrack heist derailed.
Read more about THE KILLING in our Film Notes.
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1971An adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ banned book, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE remains the most thoughtful and terrifying treatise on violence to ever reach the big screen.
Read more about A CLOCKWORK ORANGE in our Film Notes.
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1957Kirk Douglas, in the first of two collaborations with Kubrick, stars as a colonel assigned to defend three innocent French soldiers accused of cowardice during World War I.
Read more about PATHS OF GLORY in our Film Notes.
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1960Winner of four Academy Awards, SPARTACUS stars Kirk Douglas as a former gladiator who leads a slave uprising against the Roman empire.
Read more about SPARTACUS in our Film Notes.
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1962Working closely with author Vladimir Nabokov, Kubrick adapted LOLITA into something vastly different from its source material and yet wonderfully cinematic.
Read more about LOLITA in our Film Notes.
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1975Martin Scorsese cited BARRY LYNDON, Kubrick’s beautifully composed period film about an 18th century Irishman (Ryan O’Neal) who climbs the social ladder of English high society, as his favorite of the director’s work.
Read more about BARRY LYNDON in our Film Notes.
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1987Presented in two parts, Kubrick’s harrowing Vietnam film explores the brutal realities of soldiering, from a disturbing boot camp showdown between a sadistic drill instructor and overmatched recruit (Vincent D’Onofrio) to the torment of warfare itself.
Read more about FULL METAL JACKET in our Film Notes.
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1999His first film in more than a decade and the last he would ever make, Kubrick’s chilling psycho-sexual thriller features exceptional performances from Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and the late, great Sydney Pollack.
Read more about EYES WIDE SHUT in our Film Notes.
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