Ranking Kubrick Movies

ahalpert

ahalpert

Major Contributor
NoFilmSchool came out with this ranking of Kubrick movies and I think I disagree on several counts. What do you guys think?

1. Paths of Glory (1957)
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
4. The Killing (1956)
5. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
6. Barry Lyndon (1975)
7. Spartacus (1960)
8. The Shining (1980)
9. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
10. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
11. Lolita (1962)
12. Fear and Desire (1953)
13. Killer's Kiss (1955)

https://nofilmschool.com/best-stanley-kubrick-movies
 
Dr. Strangelove. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is a WAR room!"..... "Mr. President, all the bombers have been recalled but one...General, does he have any chance of getting through?" Well let's see, if he plays his cards right, well HELL YES!!! "Looks like this is it boys! Thermo nookular war, toe to toe with the Rooskies! Override bombay doors. Fire the explosive bolt!"

Peter Sellers, George C Scott, Slim Pickens, the innuendo, the double entendre, satire, reality...pure comic genius. One of the best movies ever.
 
I couldn’t rank them, but certain films have more nostalgia than others. For instance I saw a bootleg screening of fear and desire days or weeks after his death at a theatre in Austin. Every person wanted to be there to see a film that no one in the audience had seen before. Or hearing stories from a producer ( not a Kubrick producer, but close to several cast members)I was working with who told me crazy full metal jacket stories I’ve never seen printed. Maybe a more interesting question might be which film challenges you the most and Still puzzles you. I have a very smart friend who still comes up with theories on the shining and eyes wide shut that are interesting to me. Not something I’m going to do a deep dive of but many do.
 
"Eyes wide shut" was pants.

"The Shining" was brilliant, even as the end had almost nothing to do with the beginning.

The "Paths of Glory" was great, great, great but "2001" was one of a kind.

PS. "2010 - the Year We Make Contact" was neither Kubrick nor any good. Despite having Saveliy Kramarov and Natasha Shneider in the cast.
 
DLD said:
"Eyes wide shut" was pants.

"The Shining" was brilliant, even as the end had almost nothing to do with the beginning.

The "Paths of Glory" was great, great, great but "2001" was one of a kind.

PS. "2010 - the Year We Make Contact" was neither Kubrick nor any good. Despite having Saveliy Kramarov and Natasha Shneider in the cast.
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Shining end had nothing to do with the beginning? How so?

Eyes Wide Shut has many redeeming characteristics. Someone once told me to watch it as a comedy and then it made much more sense.

What does Kubrick's cast have to do with his movies? (Except genius actors like Sellers and Nicholson.) Someone said "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow."

Paths of Glory - full disclosure (and let me put my helmet on before I say this) - his only movie I haven't seen besides Fear and Desire. I started watching it once and it felt quite dated. I will get to it again, just haven't yet.
 
lambert said:
I couldn’t rank them, but certain films have more nostalgia than others. For instance I saw a bootleg screening of fear and desire days or weeks after his death at a theatre in Austin. Every person wanted to be there to see a film that no one in the audience had seen before. Or hearing stories from a producer ( not a Kubrick producer, but close to several cast members)I was working with who told me crazy full metal jacket stories I’ve never seen printed. Maybe a more interesting question might be which film challenges you the most and Still puzzles you. I have a very smart friend who still comes up with theories on the shining and eyes wide shut that are interesting to me. Not something I’m going to do a deep dive of but many do.
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was Fear and Desire as bad as Kubrick thought it was?

can you share some of the crazy FMJ stories?
 
Tom Roper said:
Dr. Strangelove. "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is a WAR room!"..... "Mr. President, all the bombers have been recalled but one...General, does he have any chance of getting through?" Well let's see, if he plays his cards right, well HELL YES!!! "Looks like this is it boys! Thermo nookular war, toe to toe with the Rooskies! Override bombay doors. Fire the explosive bolt!"

Peter Sellers, George C Scott, Slim Pickens, the innuendo, the double entendre, satire, reality...pure comic genius. One of the best movies ever.
Click to expand...

Interesting thing about Slim Pickens in that movie - "Pickens was not told that the movie was a black comedy, and he was only given the script for scenes he was in, to get him to play it "straight"."

Kind of ilke how "Mel Brooks never told Frankie Laine that the theme song "Blazing Saddles" was for a comedy."

I think I had another example of withholding the fact that it's a comic film to get an actor to play it straight but now I forget...
 
ahalpert said:
Shining end had nothing to do with the beginning? How so?
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Because, in the beginning, it was still based on King's story but Kubrick ended up rewriting the script many times over and it turned into a different film that King's story.

ahalpert said:
Eyes Wide Shut has many redeeming characteristics. Someone once told me to watch it as a comedy and then it made much more sense
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It looked like he was going to make a film that he was going to think of once it started shooting. But the whole subject of seduction and temptation was just not done well. And he couldn't make it about a film director or he'd be encroaching onto the Fellini territory. So, it was just meandering all over the place.

ahalpert said:
What does Kubrick's cast have to do with his movies? (Except genius actors like Sellers and Nicholson.) Someone said "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow."
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"2010" wasn't a Kubrick film, just an attempt to capitalize on the "2001" status and popularity.

But it did have Saveliy Kramarov.

http://leonid-gaidai.ru/mans/kramarov.jpg
 
ahalpert said:
Interesting thing about Slim Pickens in that movie - "Pickens was not told that the movie was a black comedy, and he was only given the script for scenes he was in, to get him to play it "straight"."
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newspaper reporter from the movie said:
"When legend meets fact, print the legend."
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Might have some truth but I doubt it was 100% fact. He was playing it straight in some ways, but in others, like riding the H-Bomb like a rodeo cowboy waving his hat, it's not plausible. There were a few other campy details.
 
Not much magic with fear and desire, he was right to lock it away. I Believe it’s available somewhere if interested. I probably should have checked facts before shooting mouth off on second hand stories I heard twenty years ago but One Fmj involved an actor making a suggestion on how to shoot a scene. So Kubrick thought it was a great suggestion and shot the scene several times the way the actor had suggested , without any film in the camera. Another was an actor asked how long it would take for a scene as he wanted to get back to the states for thanksgiving. Kubrick reshot the scene which had the actor in an uncomfortable position on the cold English ground repeatedly for a long time (weeks perhaps)as punishment.
 
I haven't seen all of them, but if I had to rank the ones I have, I think it'd come out something like this:

1. Paths of Glory (1957)
2. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
3. Spartacus (1960)
4. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
5. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
6. The Shining (1980)
7. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
8. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
9. Barry Lyndon (1975)
 
This is probably heresy, but I only like Barry Lyndon and Full Metal Jacket .
Eyes wide shut was a weird one - in creepy way - but didn't appeal to me as a movie.
Everything else is not exactly my cup of tea - some of them, I find barely watchable, like Clockwork (there I said it - banned from the camera forever)
 
heresy.jpg

Just kidding - everyone is entitled to their opinion (no matter how wrong it is :))

You don't even like The Shining?
 
Interesting. Shining usually has the broadest appeal. I'm trying to discern your taste.

Barry Lyndon is effing gorgeous but many find it dull. Personally I don't think the acting carries the character arc but otherwise I love it.

The issue many have with 2001 is that it's dull. Why don't you like it?

FMJ doesn't make many people's top Kubrick lists. I think it's a really interesting film. I'm not sure I find it his most even-handed but definitely a brilliant movie. And also violent and abrasive.

Some people don't like Clockwork because they think it's violent and abrasive. Why don't you like it? Just curious
 
DLD said:
Because, in the beginning, it was still based on King's story but Kubrick ended up rewriting the script many times over and it turned into a different film that King's story.
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Hmm not sure I agree with this analysis, or at least with its importance. Stories evolve. Ever see Peckinpah shooting darts BTS on Straw Dogs talking through what should happen next?

Never read King's book. I believe the hotel burns down, not sure of the other differences. I have some confusion about how Nicholson was a ghost or something, and then how did he end up in the outside world with Duvall? Or does he become a permanent fixture in the hotel after he dies there?

Just the right amount of loose ends for me. I think the story works.

It looked like he was going to make a film that he was going to think of once it started shooting. But the whole subject of seduction and temptation was just not done well. And he couldn't make it about a film director or he'd be encroaching onto the Fellini territory. So, it was just meandering all over the place.
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Yeah I dont think this story worked for me either. There were a lot of notes that he hit well but I dont think they came together to form a song. That being said, if you read the short story on which it's based, I think he captured that psychological element well where it's not clear what's really happening and the story meanders

"2010" wasn't a Kubrick film, just an attempt to capitalize on the "2001" status and popularity.
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Right. AI shows us that you cant do Kubrick without Kubrick
 
ahalpert said:
The issue many have with 2001 is that it's dull. Why don't you like it?
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I dig the look, VFX and set design, which was way ahead, but I also find it dull, slow (not in a good way, I can appreciate slow,
but this makes you reach for the FFW button) and rather uninteresting.

ahalpert said:
Some people don't like Clockwork because they think it's violent and abrasive. Why don't you like it? Just curious
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To me, Clockwork looks like a 70s student film. Selfimportant, pseudo provocative, everything from story to costume is so - in lack of a better word - "outlandish",
different and "new" at any price, even if it doesn't help the story. Don't care about the violence, compared to 2020 standards it's nothing to write home about.
Just not my cup of tea - your mileage may vary.


ahalpert said:
I'm trying to discern your taste.
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You can't. I'm a madman :evil:
 
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