50 Reasons Why Stanley Kubrick Is The Greatest Director Of All Time

By Oliver Pfeiffer /

15. Never Allowed Controversy To Get In The Way of a Good Story

The evidence that most of Kubrick's output was controversial shouldn't be undermined: Lolita was about possible paedophiliac obsession and was released in the hardly liberal year of 1962, (the summer of love was still 5 years away!), Dr Strangelove was a satire that belittled politicians as impotent fools at the height of the Cold War, Barry Lyndon was a period film that recounted the exploits of an 18th Century Irish adventurer and caused such notoriety that the director received death threats from the IRA, while Eyes Wide Shut revealed turn-of-the-century sexual promiscuous that probably made Catherine Trummell blush.

16....But had the Good Moral Sense to Withdraw One of His Own Films

On the account that youths claimed to have been spurned on by the violence depicted in A Clockwork Orange Kubrick had the moral sensitivity to withdraw his own film from UK theatres. It would be another 30 years (upon his death) that the ban would be lifted.

17. Mastered Suspense

Holding Up the Racetrack Bank The Killingat MOVIECLIPS.com The Shining is arguably one of the most intense and suspenseful horror films ever made, but masterful moments of tension turn up in everything from the ill-fated Jupiter Mission in 2001, to the racecourse heist in The Killing and the nightmarish midnight city stroll in Eyes Wide Shut.

18. Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb! (1964)

Simply one of the funniest and cleverest political and military satires put to screen. Sending up the power and communication struggles during imminent Nuclear destruction Kubrick's cold war comedy, with its comedic set-pieces, imposing sets (constructed by Ken Adam) and memorable characters still remains prescient after all these years. Classic quotes like "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War room!" and "Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!" showcase the absolute comedy genius of Peter Sellers in his three funniest films roles. A film of stark beauty and an apt analysis of the inherent human capacity for destructive paranoia and the irony of a technological world which fails to communicate at the most basic human level, Dr Strangelove is essential cinema.

19. Refused to Allow Hollywood to Erode his Creative Stamina

"Childwickbury Manor" is the vast country home of the late Film director, who lived here from 1978 until his passing in 1999. This was partly due to a somewhat convenient remote English countryside dwelling, which furnished him with a highly favourable environment in which to function - away from the sometimes creatively crippling demands of Hollywood.

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