--- title: "A Clockwork Orange: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/a-clockwork-orange/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/a-clockwork-orange" critics_score: 72 critics_reviews: 11 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # A Clockwork Orange (1971): what the critics said Critics' score 72 from 11 reviews: 8 positive, 1 mixed, 2 negative. ## Empire — Kim Newman Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2009. The film is a much-maligned and misunderstood classic and one of Kubrick's finest. It is resoundingly fable-like and abstract rather than a glamorisation of violence, with a stylised approach, sculpturally perfect sets and an astonishing performance by Malcolm McDowell at its core. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/clockwork-orange-review/) ## The New York Times — Vincent Canby Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 9 January 1972. Kubrick's film is a brilliant and dangerous work, an almost perfect example of the disorienting New Movie that remains aloof from the matters it depicts. It fashions the rise and fall of Alex as the most elegantly stylized and classically balanced movie Kubrick has ever made. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/09/archives/-orange-disorienting-but-human-comedy-orange-disorienting-human.html) ## Variety — Murf. Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 15 December 1971. Kubrick's film is a brilliant nightmare that runs contemporary social syndromes through a cinematic centrifuge to produce comic horrors of a regulated society. It makes an opaque argument for preserving respect for man's free will, even to do wrong, using vulgarity, brutality and sophisticated comedy. [Read the review](https://variety.com/1971/film/reviews/a-clockwork-orange-1200422624/) ## Slant Magazine — Jeremiah Kipp Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 20 November 2007. The critic views the film as Kubrick's finest masterwork, praising its refusal to judge Alex while forcing viewers to confront their own morality through the director's ironic, distancing aesthetic. McDowell's charismatic, gleeful performance as the ultra-violent protagonist is highlighted as central to the film's human and satirical power. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/a-clockwork-orange/) ## The Guardian Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 13 January 1972. The critic calls the film chilling and mesmeric, predicting it could become one of the seminal movies of the seventies through its density of quality and imaginative use of cinema's first principles. They single out the technical symmetry of sight and sound, along with strong performances especially from Malcolm McDowell as Alex. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/1972/jan/13/stanleykubrick) ## Radio Times — Andrew Collins Rating 4/5. The critic notes the film's inflated mythology due to its long unavailability in the UK but finds it prescient, visceral, and compelling despite its shocking violence. Kubrick's distinctive vision stands out, even if the film falls short of undisputed masterpiece status. [Read the review](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-07mm3u/a-clockwork-orange/) ## The New Yorker — Pauline Kael Fi1m's normalised score 40/100 (inferred from the text). 25 December 1971. Kubrick's film is literal-minded in its sex and brutality and Teutonic in its humor, the work of a strict professor making a pornoviolent sci-fi comedy that turns the novel's meanings around. By making victims more repulsive than the thugs, Kubrick has learned to love the punk sadist and puts the audience on Alex's side. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1972/01/01/a-clockwork-orange-pauline-kael-movie-review-stanley-kubrick) ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Fi1m's normalised score 20/100 (inferred from the text). 2 February 1972. The critic calls the film an ideological mess that celebrates its sadistic hero Alex rather than critiquing society or the state, using visual techniques to make the audience identify with him. It is ultimately talky, boring, and a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as social commentary. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-clockwork-orange-1972) ## Den of Geek — Matt Edwards Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 14 June 2011. The critic calls the film one of the best ever made and says hardly any element falls short, praising its visually striking quality from the opening and Malcolm McDowell's magnificent central performance that makes the character compelling despite his actions. [Read the review](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/a-clockwork-orange-blu-ray-review/) ## Paste — Scott Wold Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 16 July 2024. The film is a relentlessly vicious satire of a society permissive of brutal youth culture, where science and psychology serve as countermeasures to ultra-violence. It highlights how evil ultimately wins in the end, with Malcolm McDowell's electric performance as Alex standing out. [Read the review](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/stanley-kubrick/stanley-kubrick-ranked) ## The Ringer — Adam Nayman Fi1m's normalised score 50/100 (inferred from the text). 13 March 2019. The film is a contradiction: a classic that is also a failure and a masterpiece that falls short of its ambitions, with undeniable visceral intensity and visual imagination. It excels particularly in its contrapuntal use of music but struggles with simplistic pitting of the antihero against authority and overemphasis on his charisma at the expense of other characters. [Read the review](https://www.theringer.com/2019/03/13/movies/revisiting-a-clockwork-orange-stanley-kubrick) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/a-clockwork-orange.md