Though he arouses equally deep loves and hates, there can be no arguing that the New Yorker Stanley Kubrick He is one of the most influential and legendary directors in the history of cinema. Not for nothing, to six of the thirteen feature films he shot in his almost fifty years of his film career they are considered cult; almost half with odd movies. Her obsessive precision drove actor Jack Nicholson to pieces, but without her, he wouldn’t have accomplished as much.
Like his audiovisual style and the symbolic intentions of many of the indelible images he left us. Even so, almost in the same embarrassing case as that of that other genius who was the British Alfred Hitchcock, he obtained up to thirteen nominations for the Oscar awards and we’d say he just went home with one for special effects 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1969, but was not present at the ceremony and was picked up on his behalf by actors Diahann Carroll and Burt Lancaster.
The BAFTAs awarded him in his own category thanks to Barry Lyndon in 1976 and in 2000 posthumously, and the Venice Festival, for clockwork orange in 1972 and by Eyes Wide Shut in 1999. But, to the amazement of cinephiles, that was all that was relevant to those who thought that “a film is, or should be, more like music than fiction (…) a progression of moods and feelings”, and “the theme, what lies behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later”.
The opinion of specialized critics on the work of Stanley Kubrick
The numbers shown in the section of Rotten Tomatoes For the critics, they are the following in terms of Stanley Kubrick’s films, ordering them from best to worst:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): average mark of 9.3 out of 10 in 115 reviews.
- Red phone? We fly to Moscow (1964): mean of 9.1 in 92 reviews.
- Paths of Glory (1957): mean of 9 in 69 reviews.
- clockwork orange (1971): mean of 8.8 in 78 reviews.
- perfect heist (1956): mean of 8.6 in 45 reviews.
- The glow (1980): mean of 8.5 in 98 reviews.
- The metal jacket (1987): mean of 8.3 in 83 reviews.
- Barry Lyndon (1975): mean of 8.3 in 78 reviews.
- Lolita (1962): mean of 7.8 in 43 reviews.
- Eyes Wide Shut (1999): mean of 7.5 in 159 reviews.
- killer’s kiss (1955): mean of 6.7 in 25 reviews.
- Spartacus (1960): mean of 6.2 in 62 reviews.
- fear and desire (1953): mean of 5.8 in 17 reviews.
Rotten Tomatoes moviegoers’ opinion
We go back to Rotten Tomatoesbut this time for the first ranking of the films of Stanley Kubrick according to the votes of its users:
- Red phone? We fly to Moscow: average mark of 4.5 out of 5 with more than 100,000 votes.
- Paths of Glory: average mark of 4.4 with more than 25,000 votes.
- The metal jacket: half of 4.4 with more than 250,000 votes.
- clockwork orange: half of 4.4 with more than 250,000 votes.
- The glow: half of 4.4 with more than 250,000 votes.
- Barry Lyndon: half of 4.4 with more than 25,000 votes.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey: half of 4.4 with more than 250,000 votes.
- perfect heist: half of 4.1 with more than 50,000 votes.
- Spartacus: half of 4.1 with more than 50,000 votes.
- Lolita: half of 4 with more than 25,000 votes.
- Eyes Wide Shut: half of 3.8 with more than 100,000 votes.
- killer’s kiss: half of 3.4 with more than 5,000 votes.
- fear and desire: half of 3 with more than 1,000 votes.
Opinion of IMDb moviegoers
On the other hand, these are the data that you also provide us IMDb on public opinion:
- The glow: average mark of 8.4 out of 10 with 991,768 votes.
- Red phone? We fly to Moscow: half of 8.4 with 482,661 votes.
- Paths of Glory: half of 8.4 with 194,322 votes.
- The metal jacket: half of 8.3 with 728,253 votes.
- clockwork orange: half of 8.3 with 814,012 votes.
- 2002: A Space Odyssey: half of 8.3 with 655,191 votes.
- Barry Lyndon: half of 8.1 with 165,014 votes.
- perfect heist: half of 8 with 88,948 votes.
- Spartacus: half of 7.9 with 133,787 votes.
- Eyes Wide Shut: half of 7.5 with 332,941 votes.
- Lolita: half of 7.5 with 100,287 votes.
- killer’s kiss: half of 6.6 with 23,720 votes.
- fear and desire: half of 5.4 with 11,735 votes.
FilmAffinity moviegoers’ opinion
And, to finish, here we have the information that it offers us FilmAffinity on Stanley Kubrick:
- Paths of Glory: average mark of 8.4 out of 10 with 55,247 votes.
- clockwork orange: half of 8.2 with 167,070 votes.
- The metal jacket: half of 8.2 with 121,420 votes.
- The glow: half of 8.2 with 146,570 votes.
- Spartacus: half of 8 with 68,355 votes.
- Barry Lyndon: half of 7.9 with 35,001 votes.
- perfect heist: half of 7.9 with 419 votes.
- Red phone? We fly to Moscow: half of 7.9 with 47,755 votes.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey: half of 7.8 with 114,024 votes.
- Lolita: half of 7.5 with 23,983 votes.
- Eyes Wide Shut: half of 6.8 with 62,830 votes.
- killer’s kiss: half of 6.4 with 5,342 votes.
- fear and desire: half of 5.5 with 1,967 votes.
Conclusions on the best and worst of Stanley Kubrick
Nothing is further from unanimity than the data on the filmmaker born in Manhattan. Specialized criticism points to the fascinating science fiction of 2001: A Space Odyssey as his best film. Rotten Tomatoes moviegoers, to the wacky comedy of Red phone? We fly to Moscow; those of IMDb, to the hypnotizing terror of The glow; and those of FilmAffinity, to the anti-war angst of Paths of Glory.
However, with the least praiseworthy there is no dissent, and both professional analysts and those who vote on the three platforms choose fear and desire to leave it at the bottom of their respective rankings. Which means that Stanley Kubrick was improving as he accumulated time and experience behind the cameras, in a journey contrary to that of Sidney Lumet, for example, whose most impressive film is twelve merciless men (1957), his debut film.