10 Filmmakers EMBARRASSED By Their Own Movies

6. Stanley Kubrick - Fear And Desire

Fear And Desire
Joseph Burstyn

Your first work is never going to be your best work, so it should come as no surprise that Stanley Kubrick famously held little respect for his first feature film, Fear And Desire.

If you've never heard of this movie, even if you consider yourself a huge fan of the madman from Manhattan, don't worry, you're not missing out on much. This was Kubrick's first real stab at feature filmmaking after slumming it on the LIFE Magazine photographer circuit, and boy does it show.

The masterful blocking that would become the director's staple throughout his career had yet to manifest, and so many shots just scream 'amateur hour'. In later years, Kubrick would write off Fear and Desire as a "bumbling amateur film exercise", and even went as far as to purchase the film's original negatives just to prevent people from seeing it.

This, of course, did not last long, as the film is now available on pretty much any physical media platform out there. But it definitely shows how ashamed Kubrick was of his first stab at directing.

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John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?