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Top 3 Stanley Kubrick films.....ranked.

Ravenonrock

I shaved the pig
I’m going to go with:
1. Dr. Strangelove
2. Clockwork Orange
3. Barry Lyndon

IMHO Barry Lyndon was the most beautiful movie ever photographed. It’s hard to know whether it was Stanley or John Alcott A.S.C. who was the most responsible. The plot is a little slow though.
If you take stills of some of the sweeping landscape shots, they resemble portraits. He had dedicated cameras made to film in only candle light in some scenes. I find the plot to be fairly straightforward and linear, unlike some of his other films. It’s the pacing, slow and deliberate at times. It transports you back in time and you have to adjust to that pacing, I had a difficult time upon first viewing. Like many SK movies, subsequent viewings can reveal new interpretations. It’s still my #1. It’s been a few years, perhaps another journey in the time machine?
 

Esox

I didnt know
Staff member
This is a great thread. I find myself liking EWS more. It sure was effective at providing a sense of unease and unexplainable dread.

I read a magazine article years ago around the making of Eyes Wide Shut. Cruise and Kidman lived on Kubrick's estate for the 1 1/2 years it took to make it. Needlessly to say, exploring all of that as a married couple could either make it or break it. They divorced two years later.

This article hints at the same.

Eyes Wide Shut: 20 years on, Stanley Kubrick’s most notorious film is still shrouded in mystery - https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/eyes-wide-shut-stanley-kubrick-tom-cruise-nicole-kidman-marriage-film-plot-a9083926.html
 
If you take stills of some of the sweeping landscape shots, they resemble portraits. He had dedicated cameras made to film in only candle light in some scenes. I find the plot to be fairly straightforward and linear, unlike some of his other films. It’s the pacing, slow and deliberate at times. It transports you back in time and you have to adjust to that pacing, I had a difficult time upon first viewing. Like many SK movies, subsequent viewings can reveal new interpretations. It’s still my #1. It’s been a few years, perhaps another journey in the time machine?
Here’s the American Cinematographer article on Barry Lyndon . The piece about the special lenses is at the end.
 
2 Full metal jacket, didn't know it was a Kubrick film
Interesting documentary on the making of FMJ

1. Doctor Strangelove, Sellers and Scott were awesome
2. Full Metal Jacket
3. The Shining, although a departure from the book its still an excellent movie

Never liked Clockwork Orange. Appreciate its a groundbreaking film, just not my tastes. And Eyes Wide Shut just made me feel creepy.
 

oc_in_fw

Fridays are Fishtastic!
Interesting documentary on the making of FMJ

1. Doctor Strangelove, Sellers and Scott were awesome
2. Full Metal Jacket
3. The Shining, although a departure from the book its still an excellent movie

Never liked Clockwork Orange. Appreciate its a groundbreaking film, just not my tastes. And Eyes Wide Shut just made me feel creepy.
Wow
 
Never liked Clockwork Orange. Appreciate its a groundbreaking film, just not my tastes.

That is fair. I read a Clockwork Orange in high school, as I recall. Part of the impressiveness of the movie, I think, is that no one would have thought a movie true to the book could be made. I thought SK did a remarkable job of conveying what the book was about, without hewing 100% to it.

And Eyes Wide Shut just made me feel creepy.

You did not miss an awfully big part of the purpose of this movie!
 
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