---
name: "Stanley Kramer"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/stanley-kramer"
fi1m_id: "stanley-kramer"
imdb_id: "nm0006452"
tmdb_id: 4081
wikidata_id: "Q73136"
roles: ["Director","Producer"]
born: "29 September 1913"
died: "19 February 2001"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 6
average_fi1m_score: 72
average_as: "director"
average_over: 4
updated: "2026-09-20T04:44:12.153931+00:00"
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."
---

# Stanley Kramer

## Identity

Stanley Kramer

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/stanley-kramer
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** stanley-kramer
- **IMDb ID:** nm0006452
- **TMDB ID:** 4081
- **Wikidata ID:** Q73136
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kramer, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q73136, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006452/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/4081

Director and producer. Born 29 September 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. Died 19 February 2001.

## Details

- **Work:** Director, Producer
- **Born:** 29 September 1913, Brooklyn, New York, United States
- **Died:** 19 February 2001
- **Active:** 1952–1967
- **Also known as:** Стэнли Креймер, Стэнли Крамер, Стенли Креймер, Stanley Earl Kramer
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 6: 4 directing, 2 producing
- **Frequently works with:** [Abby Mann](https://film.one/person/abby-mann.md), [Sidney Poitier](https://film.one/person/sidney-poitier.md), [Spencer Tracy](https://film.one/person/spencer-tracy.md)
- **Golden Globes:** 2 Golden Globes (2 won)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 72, as director, over 4 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 79 (3), 1960s 71 (3)
- **Fi1m against the critics:** 75 to 75 across 3 titles
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Drama 4, Romance 2, Adventure 1, Crime 1, History 1, Thriller 1
- **Screen time:** 9 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $67m across 2 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kramer, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q73136, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006452/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/4081

## Streaming the US now

- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Judgment at Nuremberg*](https://film.one/film/judgment-at-nuremberg.md) (82), [*The Caine Mutiny*](https://film.one/film/the-caine-mutiny.md) (76), [*Guess Who's Coming to Dinner*](https://film.one/film/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner.md) (70)
- **The Roku Channel:** [*The Defiant Ones*](https://film.one/film/the-defiant-ones.md) (74), [*Ship of Fools*](https://film.one/film/ship-of-fools.md) (62)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Stanley Kramer

> Stanley Kramer made films about the things America argued over, and then had his characters argue over them out loud. The speeches have dated; the questions under them, about what one person owes to conscience and to the state, have not.

Sooner or later in a Stanley Kramer film, somebody stands up and says what the film is about. In *The Defiant Ones* (1958) it is said more than once, in words, while two convicts chained at the wrist run through a swamp. In *Judgment at Nuremberg* (1961) it comes from the bench and from the witness stand and runs, all told, to 191 minutes. Kramer did not trust an audience to reach the point unaided, and he was not embarrassed about it. He put it this way in 1970: "I’m not interested in message films—because I don’t have messages. I do have provocations, thoughts, doubts, challenges, and questions to offer." His characters did not always observe the distinction.

He came to directing late, having produced for a decade first. *Champion* and *Home of the Brave* in 1949 and *High Noon* in 1952 were made cheaply and outside the studios, about things the studios preferred not to touch, with Carl Foreman as his writing partner. He directed his first film, *Not as a Stranger*, in 1955, and by the end of that decade he had found the shape he would keep: a subject the country was quarrelling about, a cast of established stars, and a debate or a trial to hold them in one room. Racism in *The Defiant Ones*, nuclear war in *On the Beach* (1959), evolution in *Inherit the Wind* (1960), Nazi guilt in *Judgment at Nuremberg*, interracial marriage in *Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner* (1967). Spencer Tracy worked with him four times. Abby Mann wrote two of the scripts, *Nuremberg* among them.

The complaint against him was made at the time and most critics still make it: the films are earnest, the characters speak for positions rather than for themselves, and the camera does little but wait for the next speech. Some of that is fair. Mann’s script for *Nuremberg* tidies hard questions into points we are asked to accept, and the film’s confidence in its own decency comes too easily. But the same film asks how much responsibility a person can hand over to the state, and we went in braced for a lecture and came out, some way past the two-hour mark, unable to put that question down. Tracy and Montgomery Clift had stopped it being somebody else’s problem, which is more than most courtroom dramas manage.

Kramer’s gifts were a producer’s gifts: getting the subject, the stars and the backing into one place. The films are at their best when something else is happening while the speech is being made. *The Defiant Ones* wears better than the later, longer pictures because there is a chase under the argument, and when the argument runs out the chase keeps going. Start with the chain, then give the trial an evening when nobody is hoping for an early night.

## Biography

Stanley Kramer (1913–2001) was an American film producer and director. He produced and directed the 1961 film *Judgment at Nuremberg*.

He is known for producing *High Noon* (1952), *Champion* (1949) and *The Caine Mutiny* (1954). As a director he worked on *The Defiant Ones* (1958), *On the Beach* (1959), *Inherit the Wind* (1960), *It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World* (1963) and *Guess Who's Coming to Dinner* (1967).

Kramer received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1961 and was nominated for nine Academy Awards.

*Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (6)

### Directed (4) — the average rests on these

- *Guess Who's Coming to Dinner* (1967), Fi1m 70, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner.md)
- *Ship of Fools* (1965), Fi1m 62, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/ship-of-fools.md)
- *Judgment at Nuremberg* (1961), Fi1m 82, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/judgment-at-nuremberg.md)
- *The Defiant Ones* (1958), Fi1m 74, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-defiant-ones.md)

### Produced (2)

- *The Caine Mutiny* (1954), Fi1m 76, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-caine-mutiny.md)
- *High Noon* (1952), Fi1m 88, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/high-noon.md)

## Complete filmography (41)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Sidney Poitier: One Bright Light* (2000), Actor
- *Grace Kelly: The American Princess* (1987), Thanks
- *I'll Teach You to Dream* (1985), Actor
- *The Runner Stumbles* (1979), Director, Producer
- *The Domino Principle* (1977), Director, Producer
- *Judgment: The Court Martial of Lt. William Calley* (1975), as Host · Director, Producer
- *Judgment: The Court Martial of the Tiger of Malaya — General Yamashita* (1974), Director, Producer
- *Judgment: The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg* (1974), as Host · Director, Producer
- *Oklahoma Crude* (1973), Director, Producer
- *Bless the Beasts & Children* (1971), Director, Producer
- *R.P.M.* (1970), Director, Producer
- *The Secret of Santa Vittoria* (1970), Director, Producer
- *Guess Who's Coming to Dinner* (1967), Producer, Director — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner.md)
- *Ship of Fools* (1965), Director, Producer — Fi1m 62, [page](https://film.one/film/ship-of-fools.md)
- *It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World* (1963), Producer, Director
- *A Child Is Waiting* (1963), Producer
- *Pressure Point* (1962), Producer
- *Judgment at Nuremberg* (1961), Producer, Director — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/judgment-at-nuremberg.md)
- *Inherit the Wind* (1960), Producer, Director, Presenter
- *On the Beach* (1959), Director, Producer
- *The Defiant Ones* (1958), Director, Producer — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/the-defiant-ones.md)
- *The Pride and the Passion* (1957), Producer, Director
- *Not as a Stranger* (1955), Director, Producer
- *The Caine Mutiny* (1954), Producer — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/the-caine-mutiny.md)
- *The Wild One* (1953), Producer
- *The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.* (1953), Producer
- *The Juggler* (1953), Producer
- *The Member of the Wedding* (1952), Producer
- *Eight Iron Men* (1952), Producer
- *The Happy Time* (1952), Producer
- *The Four Poster* (1952), Producer
- *High Noon* (1952), Producer — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/film/high-noon.md)
- *The Sniper* (1952), Producer
- *My Six Convicts* (1952), Producer
- *Death of a Salesman* (1951), Producer
- *Cyrano de Bergerac* (1950), Producer
- *The Men* (1950), Producer
- *Home of the Brave* (1949), Producer
- *Champion* (1949), Producer
- *So This Is New York* (1948), Producer
- *The Moon and Sixpence* (1942), Producer

## Gallery

- ![Stanley Kramer](https://film.one/media/person/104831/gallery-bf260f6df811.jpg) Stanley Kramer — studio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Stanley_Kramer.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![photo des cabines des Planches de Deauville montrant les noms de Norman Jewison, Kirk Douglas, King Video,... (2022)](https://film.one/media/person/104831/gallery-5131435ebb06.jpg) photo des cabines des Planches de Deauville montrant les noms de Norman Jewison, Kirk Douglas, King Video,... (2022) — OpaleTardigrade, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Les_planches_deauville.jpg/1280px-Les_planches_deauville.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Stanley Kramer](https://film.one/media/person/104831/gallery-d8e8d8f36ac9.jpg) Stanley Kramer — Image via TMDB
- ![Stanley Kramer](https://film.one/media/person/104831/gallery-9b9b41aca993.jpg) Stanley Kramer — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 9 nominated

- 1968: Best Director (nominated), for *Guess Who's Coming to Dinner*
- 1968: Best Picture (nominated), for *Guess Who's Coming to Dinner*
- 1966: Best Picture (nominated), for *Ship of Fools*
- 1962: Best Director (nominated), for *Judgment at Nuremberg*
- 1962: Best Picture (nominated), for *Judgment at Nuremberg*
- 1959: Best Picture (nominated), for *The Defiant Ones*
- 1959: Best Director (nominated), for *The Defiant Ones*
- 1955: Best Picture (nominated), for *The Caine Mutiny*
- 1953: Best Picture (nominated), for *High Noon*

### Golden Globes — 2 won

- 1970: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (won), for *The Secret of Santa Vittoria*
- 1962: Best Director (won), for *Judgment at Nuremberg*

### Other awards — 1 won

- Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award 1962: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/stanley-kramer