You’ll agree that ranking movies made by Stanley Kubrick is essentially a thankless task, a fool’s errand even, if you may. That’s because pretty much every movie this guy has made hit a nerve. So, ranking them feels like choosing the best from a list of “the best.”
That said, this list is based on Rotten Tomatoes scores. Which is like using a tape measure to judge a painting: it gives you a number even though the real test is in which scenes live in your head rent-free for decades. So, here we go, from the “everyone agrees” masterpiece to the one that’s somehow only at 78%.
1. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) – Tomatometer Score – 98%
An out of sorts, dare we say paranoid, U.S. general decides to nuke Russia. He does so without so much as a hint to anyone. The president has to make a panic phone call from a war room that looks like a high school gym. Meanwhile, a guy in a cowboy hat falls from the sky riding an atom bomb. And let’s not forget the weird Nazi scientist in a wheelchair who can’t stop calling everyone ‘Mein Fürher.’ It’s arguably the funniest movie ever made about the end of the world.
Unsurprisingly, critics reserved high praise for the way this movie portrays the end of the world as a comic event. For instance, the scene where the U.S. president tries to explain to the Russian premier that it was all a big ‘oopsie’ is pure cinematic gold. Plus, Kubrick did his homework by reading like a million books on nuclear war. Which is why the jokes land so hard. You’re laughing so much you almost forget you should be terrified.
2. Paths of Glory (1957) — Tomatometer Score – 96%
This American anti-war film features Adolph Menjou and George Macready as Major General Georges Broulard and Brigadier General Paul Mireau, respectively. Broulard, safe and sound behind the lines, orders a suicide mission. He entices Mireau (with a promotion) to give the green light. As expected, the mission is an epic fail, and they pick three soldiers at random to execute for “cowardice” to cover their own butt. Kirk Douglas‘s Colonel Dax fights for them in a court that was rigged from the start.
The trench warfare scenes are so gritty you can practically smell the mud and fear. And the firing squad scene? It happens on a pretty morning with birds chirping. That quiet makes it even more brutal. In fact, the French army hated this movie so much that they tried to block it from being shown anywhere. Critics, on the other hand, loved how it refuses to pretend that there’s anything noble about war and how it spits in the face of people who send kids to die from the safety of their offices.
3. The Killing (1956) — Tomatometer Score – 96%
A bunch of crooks plans the perfect racetrack heist. Everyone’s got a job, the timing is down to the last second, and everything is just… foolproof! Until someone’s wife can’t keep her mouth shut. The ending, with all that cool cash scattered across the airport tarmac, is just pure, gut-wrenching poetry.
The movie jumps around in time, showing you the heist from different angles and tapping into elements that built some of the best crime novels. What’s even more impressive is that this film was Kubrick’s third directorial effort, and critics had a lot to say about it. Plus, he only had about $200,000 to make this thing, so he made it fast and mean. Needless to say, that lean, mean energy he brought to the movie still feels fresh today.
4. Spartacus (1960) — Tomatometer Score – 93%
Spartacus tells the story of the eponymous slave and gladiator (played by Kirk Douglas) who rose up and said “enough” before leading a massive rebellion against Rome. He manages to put together an army that actually scares them. Of course, Rome crushes them in the end, but not before every captured man stands up and shouts, “I am Spartacus,” to protect their leader.
This movie is a huge, sweeping epic that works because of small, human moments, such as the devastating final shot of Spartacus’ wife holding their baby as crosses line the Appian Way. Kubrick came on after three weeks of shooting to replace the original director, Anthony Mann. It’s also the only film he directed without full artistic control, which explains why he clashed with the star (Douglas) throughout. But despite all that chaos, the movie hits. It’s probably the closest the legendary director has come to making a movie that the whole family can watch.
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) — Tomatometer Score – 90%
This one starts with apes realizing they can use bones as weapons, then jumps a whopping million years ahead to a civilization that has figured out space travel. Based on this, they feel they have everything figured out. Spoiler alert, they don’t. On a mission to Jupiter, the crew relies heavily on their ship’s calm, unblinking computer, HAL 9000, until it quietly decides they are the problem and begins removing them one by one.
The fascination here is how Kubrick turns evolution into something downright creepy. To be honest, when the movie came out, people didn’t really think much of it because it baffled them. Now? It’s hard not to find it on everyone’s “greatest film of all time,” fans and critics alike. Go figure.
6. Full Metal Jacket (1987) – Tomatometer Score – 90%
A drill instructor (R. Lee Ermey) straight out of a nightmare breaks down a bunch of recruits with relentless insults in a bid to turn them into ruthless killers. The good news is that it worked; the bad news is that it worked a little too well because one kid (Vincent D’Onofrio) snaps, kills the sergeant, and then kills himself. Then the movie swerves hard into Vietnam, where the surviving soldiers are just wandering around, trying not to get shot by a sniper who turns out to be a teenage girl.
The boot camp half is a horror movie in its own right. Ermey, a real-life DI (drill instructor) made up most of those incredible insults himself. The barracks scene where one of the soldiers beats another with soap wrapped in a sock while others watch on is just… messed up on every level. But that’s why critics loved it so much, because it shows the dehumanizing effects of war. Kubrick recreated Vietnam in England, down to the specific dirt, just to make sure everyone’s as miserable as possible. Given its bleak tone, you’ll not leave this movie happy.
7. Lolita (1962) – Tomatometer Score – 89%
Based on the 1955 novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita follows a middle-aged man, Humbert Humbert (James Mason), who becomes obsessed with a 14-year-old girl named Dolores “Lolita” Haze (Sue Lyon). He even marries her mother, Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters), just to be near her. When the mom conveniently dies in a sudden car accident, he gains control over Lolita and then spends years dragging the girl across the country. The whole thing is as uncomfortable as it sounds.
In fact, Kubrick couldn’t show much from the book because censors would have shut him down immediately. So he gets creepy through suggestion. Despite these limitations, it mostly works thanks to Peter Sellers going completely off-script in multiple roles, which adds a weird, funny layer to the whole messed-up situation. Critics respect how it handles awful material without becoming awful itself.
8. A Clockwork Orange (1971) — Tomatometer Score – 86%
This dystopian crime movie is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel, and tells the story of a kid named Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell). You see, Alex loves rape, violence and Beethoven. After he’s caught, authorities send him to a prison where he’s “cured” by a brainwashing experiment. That experiment ensures he becomes physically unable to be violent, which means he has no way of defending himself from the people he hurt. So, basically, the predator becomes the prey.
The home invasion scene, where Alex and his droogs stomp a writer and assault his wife while singing, is still hard to watch. But that’s the point. Kubrick lures you in with the style before shoving the ugly in your face. The treatment scenes ask whether it’s worse to choose evil or to have goodness forced on you, a question critics were down with. Kubrick pulled the movie from UK theaters himself after copycat crimes popped up. It was unavailable there for nearly three decades, which, surprise, surprise, made people want to see it more.
9. The Shining (1980) — Tomatometer Score – 84%
Adapted from Stephen King‘s 1977 novel, The Shining follows Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) as he takes a winter job at the creepy Overlook Hotel. He brings his wife and kid, who has psychic “shining” powers. The hotel ghosts start whispering, and suddenly Dad goes from grumpy to homicidal with an axe.
Nicholson’s slow-motion meltdown is so flawless you barely notice the shift. The “Here’s Johnny” door-chopping scene is iconic for a reason. Poor Shelley Duvall looks genuinely terrified the whole time, probably because Kubrick put her through a wringer to get that performance. Also, King hated what Kubrick did to his book, so much so that he wrote an entirely different version years later just to fix it. What’s more, Critics trashed the movie at first. Now it’s a pop culture staple that everyone agrees is genius.
10. Killer’s Kiss (1955) — Tomatometer – 83%
This American Indie movie is Kubrick’s second feature film, following 1953’s Fear and Desire. It follows boxer Davey Gordon (Jamie Smith), who falls for dancer Gloria Price (Irene Kane). Their love story is not all smooth sailing because Gloria has an abusive boss, Vincent Rapallo (Frank Silvera), who refuses to let her go and sends goons after them. It all ends in a knock-out, drag-out fight in a warehouse full of mannequins with body parts flying everywhere.
The final fight in the dummy factory is the most Kubrick-y thing ever. Davey and Vincent, beating each other bloody, surrounded by fake arms and legs and heads staring blankly. It’s like they’re already dead and just haven’t stopped moving yet. Kubrick raised the cash for this from his own family and friends. You can tell the movie was made on a shoestring budget in some parts, but you can also see a young genius figuring out how to make a movie unlike anyone else’s.
11. Barry Lyndon (1975) — Tomatometer Score – 78%
Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) is an 18th-century Irish guy who lies, cheats, and fights his way to the top of society. He marries a rich lady, treats her terribly, and eventually loses a leg and everything else in a duel with her angry son. Yes, it’s slow. Like, really slow. But it’s also one of the most beautiful movies ever made, full stop.
Kubrick used special NASA lenses to shoot scenes by candlelight. Nothing else looked like this in 1975, and nothing looks like it now. The final duel is so tense you’ll forget to breathe. The narrator tells you exactly what’s gonna happen the whole time, and you just sit there, transfixed, watching it all fall apart anyway. While it was slow, lovers of character-driven narratives and critics ate it up.
So, there it is: the totally unbiased ranking of Stanley Kubrick’s movies, according to Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a list that will probably start a fight with your nerd film friends, but there’s no doubt that every one of them is worth watching.
