4. A Clockwork Orange - (1971, Stanley Kubrick)
There must be an irony somewhere in the fact that Kubrick's dystopian vision of futuristic London would only be made widely available to Londoners in the future. Indeed, for 27 years London and the whole of Britain was unable to see A Clockwork Orange, the film only being made available again in 1999 after Kubrick's death. The thought of this classic being so hard to see for so long is a sad one. Though its opening weekend was successful financially, people flocked to see A Clockwork Orange fueled by curiosity to see the film which had caused such a stir as opposed to having heard positive things about the movie. Saying that the film caused a stir is probably an understatement. Aside from the outraged reviews decrying Kubrick as a "bad pornographer" (Pauline Kael), the film was given an X rating in the United States classifying it alongside pornographic films. Even Anthony Burgess, the novel's author, questioned Kubrick's choice to ignore the book's final redemptive chapter. When a series of copy-cat crimes supposedly inspired by A Clockwork Orange came to court, Kubrick finally asked Warner Bros to withdraw the film from circulation. This widespread controversy overshadowed Malcolm McDowell's career-topping performance, Kubrick's supernatural attention to fine detail and the interesting themes condemning bureaucracy. It is only now that people are more used to being made to feel uncomfortable in the cinema and with the industry's control on violence in the cinema relaxing that the cinematic achievement that is A Clockwork Orange is adequately appreciated.