STANLEY KUBRICK RANKED (PART ONE)

You all know who he is. One of American cinema's fabled geniuses, one of film's biggest perfectionist. A filmmaker with perhaps the greatest ration of films to iconic images. Unable to be categorised by genre, he has covered almost every square inch of cinema over a lifetime of classic films. I'm obviously talking about Stanley Kubrick. Of course you know that already - it's in the fucking title.

As a way of celebrating the filmography of Stanley Kubrick, I thought I would go through each of his feature films and rank them - not as a way of saying any of these are better than any others, mind you. This is my subjective ranking of his films based purely on my experiences of seeing them, and really this whole exercise is just an excuse to talk about Kubrick for a while.

So without further ado, let's dive into the world of Stanley Kubrick.

13. Fear and Desire (1952)

Kubrick's feature debut Fear and Desire can be best summarised by Kubrick himself: "I look back on Fear and Desire with no real fondness other than that it was finished." It's by no means a bad film (you can check it out on YouTube here), but compared to the catalogue that Kubrick would later become known for, it is noticeably amateurish in nature. Despite this, it is a fascinating film to watch as a prelude to what would come down the road. There are flashes of the brilliance that would come to define his career that appear at points throughout the film, and at 68 minutes long it's a breeze to get through.

12. Killer's Kiss (1955)

Already we now see a huge leap in filmmaking craft between Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss, but this crime noir was made under similar financial and technical restraints. We still see a filmmaker learning his craft, but the improvement is obvious when compared to Fear and Desire. It holds similarities with Fear and Desire that are more than just simply the fact that it is a relatively short (67 minutes) film noir, but the three years of growth Kubrick experienced off-screen is palpable.

11. Spartacus (1960)

Spartacus is Kubrick's only director-for-hire gig, and it shows. It's a pretty solid historical epic, and some of the battle sequences in the film are stunning (the rolling fire barrels stand out), but it's probably the one film of Kubrick's that doesn't have that distinct signature attached to it. Stylistically it is relatively bland, and the pacing doesn't work as well as other epics of the time, the high watermark of which is Lawrence of Arabia. As with literally anything on this list, though, you could do a lot worse.

10. The Killing (1956)

This movie rules. To me this is where we begin to really see Stanley Kubrick's monolithic talent take form, and with this film and 1957's Paths of Glory alone he would have stamped his name on cinema history as one of the great filmmakers of the 1950s. The Killing is known for its hypnotic rhythm and its equally hypnotic shot of a racehorse, a shot that serves as a great microcosm for what makes The Killing so great. Despite the fact that it is fast and somewhat ungainly in its narrative momentum, it is handled with such skill and grace that it never allows you to look away from the utterly compelling characters and mystery at its heart.

9. Lolita (1962)

Being a huge fan of the novel this film is adapted from, it is fascinating to watch this film from the perspective of what they were and weren't allowed to depict on screen at a time when film censorship was much stricter than it is today. I do think that this film suffers as a result of this, as it isn't able to take its subject matter seriously and with the weight it deserves, but overall this is one of Kubrick's funniest films. It's no Doctor Strangelove (which is much higher up on this list), but it's efficient and well constructed. I don't buy the argument that this film is sympathetic to paedophilia, and anyone who says that films like this cause deviant behaviour in the people that view them need to go piss up a rope. People commit crimes, not films, and this is a film that depicts a horrible, immoral man (albeit with a pretty dumb name) without endorsing his behaviour. Perhaps the jet-black satire of Kubrick was and continues to be too sly for some viewers to pick up on. Yes, this film deals with some tricky subject matter, but to call it out for "endorsing" paedophilia is beyond ridiculous.

8. Barry Lyndon (1975)

I have never quite clicked with Barry Lyndon. I understand and appreciate the technical qualities of the film - the lighting, the state of the art camerawork, the staging, the colour control, the incredibly delicate soft lensing, the sheer beauty of the film. But I have never felt Barry Lyndon on a gut level, something that all the films sitting above this film on this list have in common. I understand that it absolutely works for others in this way, and I am not ruling out that this will change for me one day. In fact, I feel like I really need to go and see Barry Lyndon on the big screen so I can definitively experience the film in its entirety. Because, let's be totally honest, three hour long historical dramas are not my jam, and despite owning a beautiful transfer of the film on Blu-ray and having sat down numerous times to watch it all the way through, every time I watch it I find my attention drifting occasionally, drawn by the laundry that needs doing, or that piece of admin I could get done, all things that are completely removed from me in a dark theatre. So until I see Barry Lyndon on the big screen, it stays down here at number eight, purely because it has never grabbed me at a gut level in the way that most other Kubrick films have.

7. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

We are now in favourites territory. Eyes Wide Shut is one of six or seven Kubrick films that are arguably perfect, indisputable masterpieces. For me this film is a sort of sibling film to 2001: The Space Odyssey and The Shining, in that it is a film shrouded with a deeply unsettling and utterly compelling mystery. It is this mystery that defines the film more so than any of the story elements. The graphic orgy sequence has attracted a lot of attention over the years, which while obviously a huge set-piece in the film, has unfortunately taken away attention from the rest of the film. Dreamlike, surreal, disturbing and off-putting, it leads you down a rabbit hole of sexual obsession, intrusive thoughts, conspiracy and the occult. As Kubrick's final film (and arriving 12 years after Full Metal Jacket) it is often overlooked, but I encourage everyone to revisit and reevaluate their feelings about this film. Also, if your family are cool, there aren't many better Christmas films to watch around the festive season. And what a killer final line.

That does it for now; I'll be back to talk about my 6 favourite Stanley Kubrick films later this week. Any guesses as to what my favourite is going to be?

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