Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Kubrick's final film could have been a masterpiece with its creepiness and grandeur, especially the orgy sequence, but feels tame to modern eyes with an uncomfortable focus on female nudity; it remains a hypnotic story of a marriage falling apart.

The critic finds the film fascinating and disquieting as Kubrick's final work, noting its chilling emphasis on ruling-class secrecy that resonates more strongly now. He singles out the committed performances by Cruise and Kidman for praise while acknowledging some dated elements like the orgy scene.

As an epilogue to Kubrick's career the film is unmistakably Kubrickian and a must-see for acolytes, though the unconverted may find it stylish but overblown. The critic singles out Cruise's performance for lending the film essential humanity amid its cold observation of relationships.

The film is a unique cinematic object that fails as conventional melodrama but is interesting for its anachronistic values and defence of commitment over licence. The critic singles out the domestic scenes between Cruise and Kidman for their intense, unexpected carnality.

Kubrick has gone out with a whimper rather than a bang; the film is a let-down that is tedious, unerotic and affected, resembling an ultra-long episode of Tales Of The Unexpected. The critic singles out the snail-like pace and pretentious posturing that douse any sparks from the stars.

The critic finds the film compelling, engrossing and mesmerizing despite its length and deliberate pace. He singles out the radical visualizations of female privacy, including a startling early scene with Alice Harford, for praise.

The critic calls the film a mysterious, meandering masterpiece and praises Kubrick's distinctive, dreamlike style and handling of its themes of desire and marriage.

Kubrick's final film is an erotic daydream of chances missed, structured like a thriller or nightmare with loose ends. It sustains an unsettling, dreamlike tone through strange encounters and a hypnotic orgy sequence, though the ending reconciliation feels conventional.

The film is no masterpiece but endlessly fascinating, due in part to its unusually faithful adaptation of Schnitzler's Dream Story and its dreamlike, enigmatic qualities.

This astonishing posthumous work is a spellbinding addition to the Kubrick canon, a dead-serious exploration of sexual yearnings that sustains eeriness and gravity. It glides into a mysterious realm with dreamlike intensity, interweaving sex and death in a nuanced adult film.