Stanley Kubrick is a filmmaker who could work in any genre he pleased and always produce a masterpiece. The man was incapable of making anything less than compelling, thanks to his famous tendencies as a director obsessed with perfectionism and his stunning eye for cinematography. The way his stories use the full range of tools a filmmaker has at their disposal is un-paralled even to this day. Kubrick embraced cinema as a medium that could be warped in any way he desired, unlike any other form of art, with the use of music, light, dialogue, actors and composition. His films have been dissected by film scholars and casual movie goers alike for years now and their is still no one general consensus as to what any of them mean. That speaks volumes to Kubrick's brilliance by showing his complete mastery of the medium of cinema. I have compiled a list of the 5 Kubrick films that best exemplify his genius and provides a solid argument as to why he should be viewed as the greatest director of all time...
5. Paths Of Glory (1957)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DHhTjiVlF4 Paths of Glory is the earliest masterwork of Kubrick's career and one of the most important movies ever made. The completely anti-war message is brought to life in a way that no other film in history has ever managed to do. While movies like Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan and even Kubrick's own Full Metal Jacket show the audience the horrors or war in a more visceral way Paths of Glory goes straight for the viewer's emotional outlook. The film portrays combat more as a waste of human life instead of a necessary evil to defeat an opponent which adds a layer of depth to the war movie genre that has never been replicated. The complete mastery of the camera in the trench scenes is now something Kubrick has become very well known for but is also an excellent way to draw the viewer into the movie. The long takes he employs so effortlessly serve to give the scenes of battle a sense of realism that wasn't seen at the time and also show the full extent of the soldier's fighting. Paths of Glory is, arguably, the most important political film of its era and a movie whose message has become stronger as the years have progressed.