Stanley Kubrick: Ranked

The list I've been waiting to make

Foreword

If you know anything about me as a person, you would know that I worship the life and work of Stanley Kubrick over every other filmmaker alive or dead.

With 2023 eyes I can say that I didn’t agree with all of his methods even when they were successful, but I still believe his career is the measuring stick for all Directors.

For myself, discovering Kubrick was like discovering a family member and at the same time like discovering myself. A deep personal connection. He was the same age as my grandparents and like my grandmother, he was a Jew from the Bronx. Like me he considered himself a non-religious cultural Jew. Like myself he didn’t grow up a bohemian but turned to the arts. Both high school slackers, autodidacts. and he embodied my personal belief of what a true filmmaker should be.

With that said, I’m most certainly and obviously not him. I’m me and I don’t want to try to be him, I did that already for a long time, it didn’t work out and I’m becoming ok with that. I’m happy being who I am.

Kubrick films ranked

13) Fear and Desire

This is a student film and if it weren’t for the fact that it’s literally one of the first true modern Independent films ever, it would have never made it to a theater.

The lesson for young filmmakers and writer’s here is that in order to make something relatable, you need to make it more specific and based it in reality.

12) Killer’s Kiss

Kubrick’s 2nd film, much better than his first and good enough to get him a real budget for his 3rd, yet relatively unremarkable. We do start to see the virtuoso of light and lens show flashes of his later brilliance.

I wish gatekeepers today knew what signs of a great director are because I can guarantee they would miss them here.

11) Spartacus

Not a true Kubrick film in that he only directed it and as a replacement after it started filming. Still, it’s a classic but it’s just not solely his, although it did give him the clout and autonomy to make his films his way with a studio budget for the rest of his life.

To quote Kirk Douglas when he thought he could control Kubrick, “Stanley is a talented shit!”

10) Lolita

I maintain that the 2nd half of this film is the worst of Kubrick’s career, but the first half is so incredible that it’s always worth a view. Plagued by censors, Kubrick himself said that if he knew what they would make him cut, then he would have never made it in the first place.

James Mason and Peter Sellers are incredible but Shelly Winters steals the show.

9) The Killing

Just an incredible noir thriller that still holds up today. We start to see a distinctive visual style come out more consistently from Kubrick as his confidence grew. Most important is that Kubrick’s voice and philosophy are articulated in this film for the first time. A common thread throughout his work, of the man that thinks of every details except the one that costs him everything. The bittersweetness of life.

The Killing is the first true Kubrick film in my eyes.

8) A Clockwork Orange

What’s there to say my droogs? It was so successful that Kubrick himself had to shut it down. The power of his filmmaking so strong, yet so misunderstood, that it caused copycat attacks in England. The playing with language, with sound and music. and speeds of everything. Kubrick’s most subversive film and arguably his most experimental in many ways. The budget was tight, in part because Kubrick wanted to prove to the Studios again what he was capable of after the massive budget on 2001.

You’ll never listen to Singing in the Rain the same ever again after viewing.

7) Paths of Glory

Anti war film and perhaps his most emotional film. His genious in camera movement, lens choices, and locations are fully realized. The Killing is the first true Kubrick film, but Paths of Glory put Kubrick on Hollywood’s map thanks to his association with Kirk Douglas. What makes this film different than other Kubrick pictures is that it shows an outward emotion from his characters seldom emphasized in later works.

Kubrick met his wife, Christiane, on the film and she is the woman singing in the bar.

6) The Shining

I’ve never loved horror movies, I respect them, but it’s just not my thing,. The Shining is different for me, I love The Shining. The use of the steadicam, the sets, the wildness of the performances. It’s the sign of a filmmaker just aggressively going for it without restrictions. It’s also the most documented of his works thanks to his daughter, Vivianne’s documentary.

Only thing I can never excuse Stanley for is the way he treated Shelley Duvall. It was taken too far.

5) Full Metal Jacket

Unlike Paths of Glory, FMJ is not an anti-war film, but more of a film about human nature, which is to say that there’s something in us that compels us to murder and slaughter each other. The film is structured in such a way that it feels almost like two separate films but in a good way.

It shows how a true master bides his time and then just blows everyone else out of the water when ready to make their statement on a subject;

4) Barry Lyndon

Criminally underrated and the most beautifully shot movie ever. The most hilariously accurate portrayal of 18th century life ever put to screen. Originally much of the research was meant for Kubrick’s great Napoleon project, but he had to pivot because of a drop in funding after the film Waterloo bombed. Barry Lyndon is a simple story of an opportunist that rises within European society only to crash back down. Almost every shot is a painting, every movement and costume and location precise. It’s a monumental visual achievement.

I’ve never laughed harder than the first 15 minutes of this film because the 18th century society was so preposterous, the situations so ridiculous, yet the acting is sooooo serious.

3) Eyes Wide Shut

This movie just gets better with age. I first saw it too young, but realized it was the first piece of truly erotic art I ever saw when I got older. It made more sense to me in my 20s, but I didn’t fully grasp it until I got married. As a parent in my mid 30s, I finally fully understand it, at least until I reach my 40s. It’s Kubrick’s final take on life on what he felt was the most important subject matter, family.

Don’t watch this film with your spouse unless you want to get into an argument.

2) 2001 A Space Odyssey

The greatest visual experience of its time and it still baffles audiences today. It’s simply iconic and not a film to be explained, but to be experienced so anything I could say here is rather pointless. Just go see it, in a theater if you can.

Kubrick’s grandest and most hopeful film.

1) Dr. Strangelove

It just makes me smile and laugh. I don’t feel like explaining why I love this film so much, so I’m going to keep the reasons to myself.