Stanley Kubrick is easily one of the greatest filmmakers in history. Kubrick’s sharp social satire, untraditional framing techniques, and complex storylines distinguished him as a maverick director whose style has been replicated and repeated ever since. Kubrick’s films are worthy of heavy discussion and debate, and their meaning continues to be a subject of debate among cinephiles for a long time after the project was released.
Kubrick was a notorious perfectionist who poured extensive detail into his productions, and his meticulous nature gave him the reputation of being hard to work with. There are many Kubrick projects that never saw the light of day, but many of the thirteen films he did leave behind are considered to be among the greatest of all time. Ranking them is certainly no easy task, as even lower on the list you’ll find beloved classics.
Here is every Stanley Kubrick film, ranked worst to best.
13. Fear and Desire
It's almost hard to judge Kubrick’s directorial debut Fear and Desire against the rest of his filmography, as the hour-long anti-war film is more or less an extended student short project that’s mostly fascinating in how it predicates his later achievements. Like any great filmmaker, Kubrick didn’t come out of the gate fully formed, and his experimental techniques took time to develop in their maturity. Fear and Desire is a fascinating watch for Kubrick obsessives, but for an average viewer, it's mostly a slog.
Although not specifically based in any one conflict, the film was released amidst the Korean War and is a rather overt parallel to the rise of American militarism. The film follows the exploits of four soldiers (Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, Steve Coit, and Paul Mazursky) who venture on a dangerous mission between two ambiguous countries. Unlike his later films, in which Kubrick’s graphic and shocking imagery had nuanced contextual meaning, there’s nothing subtle about Fear and Desire.
12. Killer’s Kiss
Kubrick’s second film is certainly a step up from Fear and Desire, but it was still the work of a developing filmmaker who was more trying to perfect current trends than innovate his own. Compared to the rest of his filmography, Killer’s Kiss is perhaps the biggest outlier. It showed genuine empathy for sympathetic characters, and crafts a tragic scenario out of familiar noir genre story beats. It's impressive what Kubrick did on a shoestring budget, but ultimately it's only an impression of the work of Billy Wilder or John Huston.
Killer’s Kiss follows the middleweight boxer Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith) as he attempts to save his seductive neighbor Gloria Price (Irene Kane) from her abusive boyfriend Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera) and is drawn into a web of crime and betrayal. Kubrick packs a lot of non-sequiturs and twists into a tight 67 minutes, but there’s little substance to Killer’s Kiss other than its relation to the larger genre context.
11. Lolita
Lolita is a fascinating example of Kubrick biting off more than he could chew. On paper, matching the novel filmmaker with the controversial 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov seemed like a perfect fit, as Kubrick had shown he could adapt great literature and offer his own interpretation. Unfortunately, much of the brilliance of Nabokov’s novel was from its word choice and expressive language, and this was much harder to translate into a narrative feature.
Despite its loaded subject material, Lolita isn’t as shocking or outrageous as one might expect from Kubrick; in fact, the understated nature of how the predatorial relationship precedes is something Kubrick utilizes for darkly comedic effect. James Mason gives a brilliant performance as the British professor Humbert, who marries the woman Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) in order to seduce her daughter Lolita (Sue Lyon). Of all of Kubrick’s films, Lolita is the one that least justifies an epic runtime, but for what it’s worth it's a personal favorite of the great David Lynch.
10. Spartacus
It's fascinating that a film as iconic as Spartacus is Kubrick’s most compromised work, and although the film is hailed as a classic, is the one film within Kubrick’s filmography where he didn’t have complete artistic control. The importance of Spartacus ranges beyond Kubrick himself; written by Dalton Trumbo amidst the Hollywood blacklisting crisis, it was an overt metaphor for political activism and civil rights. Trumbo expertly wove his own beliefs into a genre that tended to boast more overtly nationalistic projects like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments.
Despite its inherently subversive quality, Spartacus curbs more towards being a crowd-pleaser than anything Kubrick likely would’ve done on his own. He certainly crafts exciting action sequences and brilliantly brings the last days of the Roman Empire to life, but the inherent ambiguousness of Kubrick’s style clashes with the more inflammatory rhetoric that Trumbo aimed for. Kirk Douglas gives one of the signature “movie star” performances of all-time and Spartacus is undoubtedly a classic, but as a “Kubrick film” it falls towards the latter half of his achievements.
9. The Killing
In only a few short parallels, it's easy to see how The Killing is one of the most influential films ever made. Kubrick’s 1956 neo-noir heist thriller tells its robbery plot from multiple perspectives and was among Quentin Tarantino's primary influences for Reservoir Dogs. If you consider how Reservoir Dogs laid the groundwork for Pulp Fiction (and as a result, how many Pulp Fiction imitators there have been), then there’s an entire subgenre that owes itself to the Kubrick classic. It remains one of his most electrifying and entertaining works.
The film revolves around the veteran con man Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden), who gathers together a group of motley criminals in order to rob a teller in the midst of a horse race. Unlike Killer’s Kiss, which felt like an imitation of noir cliches, The Killing subverts audience expectations with femme fatales, red herrings, and climactic shootouts that aren’t what they initially appear to be. While not as philosophically rich as some of his later work, The Killing is an example of Kubrick crafting an elevated version of typical Hollywood fare.
8. Paths of Glory
Anti-war themes are prevalent within a good portion of Kubrick’s work, and in many ways Paths of Glory is a more mature version of his early attempts to make a statement in Fear and Desire. Kubrick trekked into less ambiguous territory with a grounded narrative set within an actual historical context. Set in World War I, the film follows the trial of the French Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) when his men are court-marshaled for refusing to engage in a suicide mission.
Douglas is one of the quintessential movie stars for a reason, as his presence of authority demands attention when he delivers powerful rhetoric. Compared to Spartacus, Douglas is given a more complex character, as Dax is ostracized within the top military circles and accused of cowardice simply for treating his men as more than pawns. Kubrick emulated newsreel footage to create a grizzly, gritty depiction of realistic trench combat.
7. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
What has always made Kubrick such a fascinating filmmaker is that despite the dark subject material that he frequently tackles, he’s never failed to have a sense of humor. There are satirical elements woven into all of his films, and unsurprisingly his only outright comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is both one of the funniest and most devastating films ever made. Overwhelmed by the fanaticism of the Cold War, Kubrick could only laugh at the incompetence of world leaders as they made decisions that impacted the entire global population.
In a parallel to then-current events, Dr. Strangelove follows the fictional leadership of both the United States and Soviet Union after a nuclear missile is launched by a rogue member of the American military. Kubrick’s screenplay was already brilliant, but it grew even funnier thanks to the great comedic talents of George C. Scott, Peter Sellers, Slim Pickens, and Sterling Hayden. Kubrick always has an ear for great music cues, and his use of Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again” is an all-timer.
6. Full Metal Jacket
There is a broad misconception among cinephile circles that Full Metal Jacket is a lesser Kubrick work that only works in its first half. Undoubtedly, the first hour of Kubrick’s 1987 war film includes some of the most powerful imagery of his career as it follows the brutal training process of U.S. Marines as they undergo boot camp training. Lee Ermey is utterly terrifying as the abusive, cruel training Sergeant Hartman, and Vincent D’Onofrio is completely heartbreaking as the sensitive Gomer Pyle.
Yet, Full Metal Jacket is just as engaging and haunting when the narrative focus shifts to the actual war itself and follows the exploits of Matthew Modine’s Private Joker and his squad. It's unfocused, confusing, and ultimately unresolved- much like the conflict in Vietnam itself. There’s a darkly amusing senselessness to the violence that Kubrick brilliantly orchestrates, and like Dr. Dtrangelove, the ending rendition of the “Mickey Mouse March” is a haunting recontextualization of a classic song.
5. A Clockwork Orange
The only thing more shocking than the highly disturbing material within A Clockwork Orange is how completely ahead of his time Kubrick was, and how half a decade later his 1971 dystopian classic is just as impactful and relevant (and unfortunately subject to the same debates over whether or not it's “promoting” its characters' behavior). A Clockwork Orange highlights Kubrick’s greatest abilities; it's viscerally entrancing, builds an entire mythology seamlessly, and tackles complex philosophical undertones with novelistic insights.
Kubrick’s adaptation of the novel by Anthony Burgess (who hated the film) tackled behaviorism, youth culture, and perpetual violence in a way that's critical of both adolescent ignorance and societal conditioning. Set in a dystopian urban version of Great Britain, the narrative focuses on the young man Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his gang as they rape, pillage, and torture, and are later forced into a government behavioral conditioning program. It's impossible to define A Clockwork Orange as just one genre; Kubrick had transcended perfecting other categories and created a frighteningly original, singular work.
4. Barry Lyndon
It goes without saying that Barry Lyndon is one of the most beautiful-looking movies ever made. Rarely will you find a three-hour film that’s this entertaining, as Barry Lyndon saw Kubrick lampooning the self-seriousness of the cinematic epic with a titular character that’s selfish, repugnant, and generally unlikeable. Ryan O’Neal crafts one of the most complex film characters of all time; Barry is infatuated with his own cousin, and after a violent duel flees on a series of misadventures that see him ascribing loyalty to various nations and militaries.
It was a different type of anti-war film that chronicles the Seven Years’ War of the eighteenth century from an unusual perspective, and the beauty of Kubrick’s natural lighting and John Alcott’s gorgeous landscapes contrast with the lurid material. Utilizing a chaptered approach, Kubrick sets the stage for a climactic duel between Barry and his son.
3. Eyes Wide Shut
Leave it to Kubrick to create the most anxiety-inducing Christmas movie ever made. Kubrick’s final film preyed on marital anxieties amidst a holiday season that subverts the festive decorations of modern New York into a nightmarish prison. How much of the tension between Dr. Bill Harford and his wife Alice stems from actual conflicts between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman is unclear, but Kubrick has rarely been more astute in his depiction of toxic masculinity.
Eyes Wide Shut is a masterwork of paranoia. Even as he spouts sexist jargon, Bill’s perspective is shared with the viewer as they’re both drawn into the mystery of a secret sexual society that goes to great lengths to silence outsiders. Kubrick’s notorious attention to detail has caused many to label him as “obsessive,” and yet Eyes Wide Shut is a film about the nature of obsession itself. Perhaps it's only fitting that Kubrick’s last present to filmgoers was both a mystery that could never be solved and a somewhat self-reflexive commentary.
2. The Shining
Kubrick is a filmmaker who works in extremes, and fittingly The Shining is a film about descending into madness that forces the viewer to undergo the same desensitization to reason. It's not hard to see why Stephen King remains unsatisfied with Kubrick’s vision, because there’s nothing about the film that aligns with rules or building a greater mythology. The Overlook, like the mind of Jack Torrance himself, can be examined and labeled but never truly explained.
It's obvious to state that The Shining is at least one of, if not the greatest horror film ever made, and it remains impressive that a film that boasts such rich subtext remains as viscerally scary on a primal level. The idiosyncratic visual choices are so effective at dulling the senses that the scares are even more effective, and Kubrick has rarely gotten a performance from an actor as captivating as Jack Nicholson’s brilliant work. The notorious on set difficulties and subsequent conspiracy theories make The Shining just as fascinating four decades later.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
One of the greatest achievements in film history, 2001: A Space Odyssey was such a game-changer that it's hard to summarize the extent of its influence. It's both a vision of the future and a window into the past, a criticism of technological overbearance and an insight into the search for a creator, and a richly metaphorical text that’s still engaging as an outer space adventure. There are classic films that demand respect for their achievements at a specific time and era, but 2001: A Space Odyssey still invites awe into how Kubrick pulled it all off.
The technical innovations of 2001: A Space Odyssey laid the groundwork for nearly all modern depictions of space travel. It's even more impressive considering the film was released a full year before the Apollo 11 moon landing, and much of 2001 ended up predicting future scientific achievements. Kubrick played with the biggest thematic scope of his career, drawing parallels between evolution, artificial intelligence, and exploration; there’s a core thesis to his allusions, but like his best work, Kubrick’s 2001 continues to spark discourse and analysis.
2001: A Space Odyssey is my personal favorite movie of all time, and shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic made it unsafe to go to movie theaters, I had the opportunity to see it on the big screen. Watching 2001 unfold in its intended format gives me renowned admiration for how the movies can transport us beyond our imaginations.
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