Items11The creator’s order
  1. 1The Killing (1956)The Killing (1956) 7.9/10 on IMDbReleased Jun 6, 1956Start here, because this is Kubrick's control at its most compact: 84 minutes, a racetrack robbery and a plan the film shows you piece by piece, out of order, as each gang member's part of the day replays from a new angle. A flat, semi-documentary narrator stitches the fragments together and is not…0
  2. 2Paths of Glory (1957)Paths of Glory (1957) 8.4/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 25, 1957Watch it next for the camera. The long tracking shots that glide through the French trenches of 1916, first with a general inspecting his men and later alongside a doomed assault, are where Kubrick's moving camera becomes an argument in itself. Kirk Douglas plays the colonel defending three…0
  3. 3Spartacus (1960)Spartacus (1960) 7.9/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 13, 1960The one detour on the route, best taken straight after Paths of Glory because Kirk Douglas links them: as producer and star, he brought Kubrick in to replace Anthony Mann after shooting had begun, when the production was already set. That makes this the least personal film here, a big-studio epic…0
  4. 4Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) 8.3/10 on IMDbReleased Jan 29, 1964Here the cold humor that runs through all of Kubrick arrives at full strength. Peter Sellers plays three roles, the stiff-upper-lip Group Captain Mandrake, the hapless President Muffley and the scientist of the title, while a general's private nuclear strike plays out between a bomber, an air base…0
  5. 5Lolita (1962)Lolita (1962) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Jun 13, 1962Fresh from Strangelove, you will spot Peter Sellers again, this time as Clare Quilty, the shadow trailing James Mason's Humbert, with Kubrick shooting so he could catch whatever Sellers improvised. The film is most interesting for how it handles the novel. Under pressure from the Production Code,…0
  6. 6Full Metal Jacket (1987)Full Metal Jacket (1987) 8.2/10 on IMDbReleased Jun 26, 1987Jump ahead to 1987 to close the war films while Paths of Glory is still fresh. The first half, at a Marine boot camp, is the stretch everyone remembers, built around a ferocious drill instructor and a recruit coming apart; the second follows the same men into the street fighting in Hue. Both halves…0
  7. 7The Shining (1980)The Shining (1980) 8.4/10 on IMDbReleased May 23, 1980By now you know how Kubrick uses corridors and symmetry, and the Overlook Hotel turns both into dread. The gliding shots that trail young Danny through the empty hallways were made with the Steadicam, operated by its inventor Garrett Brown, who did all of the film's Steadicam work. The hotel's…0
  8. 8A Clockwork Orange (1971)A Clockwork Orange (1971) 8.2/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 28, 1971The most abrasive film on the route, placed after The Shining so you come to it already used to Kubrick watching violence from a cool distance. Adapted from Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel, it follows Alex, a Beethoven-loving gang leader in a near-future Britain, who is put through a state cure for…0
  9. 92001: A Space Odyssey (1968)2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 8.3/10 on IMDbReleased Apr 2, 1968Save it until you have learned to trust Kubrick's patience, because this is where he asks for the most of it. There are fewer than 40 minutes of dialogue in the whole film, and the story of the monolith, the voyage and the calm, watchful computer HAL is told mostly through image, music and scale.…0
  10. 10Barry Lyndon (1975)Barry Lyndon (1975) 8.1/10 on IMDbReleased Dec 16, 1975The slowest film here, which is why it comes after 2001 has trained your eye. Adapted from Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon, it follows an Irish opportunist climbing through 18th-century society, with Ryan O'Neal, then best known for screwball comedies, cast against type. Kubrick avoided…0