20 Movies That Are Flawed Masterpieces

9. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

The initial reception towards Eyes Wide Shut was not all that positive, with many critics keen to label it as Stanley Kubrick's worst movie ever - something akin to a disaster. Understandable: Eyes Wide Shut, with its slow, sex-obsessed plotline, is not an easy film - taken at face value, it is a tricky and confusing semi-masterpiece. One that was perhaps not helped by the fact that it starred then-couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, which resulted in people judging the movie on what they thought it would be, not what it was.

And yet its dream-like atmosphere sucks you in; going back to it, years later, you might be surprised to find that Eyes Wide Shut is not the catastrophe you once thought it to be, but a picture that happens to be just as interesting as any of Kubrick's movies - albeit a little less polished. There is a lot wrong with it, as is the case with any flawed masterpiece, but as an exploration of sex, Eyes Wide Shut is a beautiful beast: a weird, sexy, twisted fantasy.

As a prime example of a movie that rewards repeated viewings, Eyes Wide Shut makes an essential case for films you weren't quite sure about the first time: it is a sprawling odyssey of red herrings, fine details and subtext - no wonder Martin Scorsese declared it to be his fourth favourite movie of the '90s, insisting that people were "looking at it wrong."