Eyes Wide Shut
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After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
What critics thought
Kubrick's final film divided critics sharply on release: admirers found it a hypnotic, dream-logic study of desire and anxiety, while detractors called it glacially paced, sexually tame, and disconnected from any recognizable reality. The gap between its warm critical reception and its catastrophic audience scores is as wide as any in mainstream cinema, and retrospective esteem has climbed steadily since 1999, with several major critics' lists now placing it among the decade's very best.
“provocatively conceived, gorgeously shot and masterfully executed ... Kubrick's brilliantly choreographed one-take scenes create a near-hypnotic atmosphere of commingled desire and dread.”
Michael Wilmington·Chicago Tribune
“Kubrick is annoyingly offhand while at the same time grindingly pedantic; plot points are made over and over again, things are explained till the dawn threatens to break in the east, and the movie stumbles along at a glacial pace”
Stephen Hunter·The Washington Post
“This is a dead-serious film about sexual yearnings, one that flirts with ridicule yet sustains its fundamental eeriness and gravity throughout. The dreamlike intensity of previous Kubrick visions is in full force here.”
Janet Maslin·The New York Times
“estranged from any period I recognize. Who are these people played by Cruise and Kidman, who act as if no one has ever made a pass at them and are so deeply traumatized by their newfound knowledge of sexual fantasies—the kind that mainstream culture absorbed at least half a century ago?”
David Edelstein·Slate
“the film's primal, almost religious intensity and power is primarily derived from its multifaceted realization that disobeying the dictates of society and your conscience can be both terrifying and exhilarating.”
Nathan Rabin·The A.V. Club
Accolades
Genres
Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Cast & Crew
Stanley KubrickDirector
Tom CruiseDr. William Harford
Nicole KidmanAlice Harford
Sydney PollackVictor Ziegler
Marie RichardsonMarion
Rade ŠerbedžijaMilich
Todd FieldNick Nightingale
Vinessa ShawDomino
Alan CummingDesk Clerk
Sky du MontSandor Szavost
Fay MastersonSally
Leelee SobieskiMilich's Daughter
Thomas GibsonCarl
Jocelyn PookComposer
Frederic RaphaelWriter
Arthur SchnitzlerWriter
Larry SmithCinematographyEyes Wide Shut
After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
What critics thought
Kubrick's final film divided critics sharply on release: admirers found it a hypnotic, dream-logic study of desire and anxiety, while detractors called it glacially paced, sexually tame, and disconnected from any recognizable reality. The gap between its warm critical reception and its catastrophic audience scores is as wide as any in mainstream cinema, and retrospective esteem has climbed steadily since 1999, with several major critics' lists now placing it among the decade's very best.
“provocatively conceived, gorgeously shot and masterfully executed ... Kubrick's brilliantly choreographed one-take scenes create a near-hypnotic atmosphere of commingled desire and dread.”
Michael Wilmington·Chicago Tribune
“Kubrick is annoyingly offhand while at the same time grindingly pedantic; plot points are made over and over again, things are explained till the dawn threatens to break in the east, and the movie stumbles along at a glacial pace”
Stephen Hunter·The Washington Post
“This is a dead-serious film about sexual yearnings, one that flirts with ridicule yet sustains its fundamental eeriness and gravity throughout. The dreamlike intensity of previous Kubrick visions is in full force here.”
Janet Maslin·The New York Times
“estranged from any period I recognize. Who are these people played by Cruise and Kidman, who act as if no one has ever made a pass at them and are so deeply traumatized by their newfound knowledge of sexual fantasies—the kind that mainstream culture absorbed at least half a century ago?”
David Edelstein·Slate
“the film's primal, almost religious intensity and power is primarily derived from its multifaceted realization that disobeying the dictates of society and your conscience can be both terrifying and exhilarating.”
Nathan Rabin·The A.V. Club
Accolades
Genres
Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Cast & Crew
Stanley KubrickDirectorTom CruiseDr. William HarfordNicole KidmanAlice HarfordSydney PollackVictor ZieglerMarie RichardsonMarionRade ŠerbedžijaMilichTodd FieldNick NightingaleVinessa ShawDominoAlan CummingDesk ClerkSky du MontSandor SzavostFay MastersonSallyLeelee SobieskiMilich's DaughterThomas GibsonCarlJocelyn PookComposerFrederic RaphaelWriterArthur SchnitzlerWriterLarry SmithCinematographyStream
Rent & Buy