Stanley Kubrick’s favourite science-fiction movies
As the director of arguably the greatest sci-fi movie of all time in 2001: A Space Odyssey, finding out what Stanley Kubrick thought of the genre’s other heavy hitters would be fascinating in theory. However, in typical Kubrickian style, he didn’t make it easy to find out which films he enjoyed more than others.
In fact, Kubrick was only ever documented as naming his ten favourite films on one occasion, which was published in Cinema magazine in 1963. The publication ceased operations in 1976, and not a single sci-fi made the cut. However, over the subsequent decades, various interviews and recollections from those closest to him have put together a stronger – if still incomplete – picture of the titles he enjoyed.
Even at that, though, debate continues to rage, even among those who were closest to him. His daughter Katharine Kubrick-Hobbs listed Fritz Lang’s seminal Metropolis among movies that her father liked, but his long-time personal assistant and confidant Anthony Frewin disputed those claims.
As he told the British Film Institute: “We spoke about this whilst working on 2001: A Space Odyssey,” he said. “Stanley thought it was ‘silly’ and even ‘childish’ and couldn’t quite understand why it was held in such high regard.” Regardless, his own daughter was adamant Metropolis was a film he enjoyed, which may have come after he’d finished his own sci-fi epic and gained a fresh perspective.
Ridley Scott did state in the Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner documentary that Kubrick held an admiration for Alien, which is as close to an endorsement as he could possibly hope to get from a filmmaker who was never one to shower his peers and contemporaries in public forms of praise.
The Full Metal Jacket director was once credited as calling Mike Hodges’ Michael Crichton adaptation The Terminal Man as “terrific”, too, so much so that he stepped in to lend an assist when dissatisfied studio executives at Warner Bros were planning to withhold its theatrical release in the United Kingdom.
The BFI also noted that at various points, he’d expressed enthusiasm for Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, as well as Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris. There was additional talk that he’d grown fond of Voyage to the End of the Universe, but once again, Frewin isn’t entirely convinced.
Although he did admit that Kubrick had seen the Czech film while “researching and writing 2001: A Space Odyssey,” he remained sceptical: “It certainly wasn’t an inspiration to him, though he did think it was a half step up from your average science-fiction film in terms of its theme and presentation.” Again, for Kubrick, that could easily be interpreted as praise.
Stanley Kubrick’s favourite sci-fi movies:
- Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
- Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)
- The Terminal Man (Mike Hodges, 1974)
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
- Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
- Voyage to the End of the Universe (Jindřich Polák, 1963)
