A Clockwork Orange (1971)

All Critics (46) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (45) | Rotten (5) | DVD (25)

A painless, bloodless, and ultimately pointless futuristic fantasy.

February 6, 2013 Full Review

Andrew Sarris

Village Voice

Top Critic

Kubrick's contributions are his wit and his eye. The wit, too much at times, is as biting as in Dr. Strangelove, and the production, while of another order, is as spectacular as in 2001.

January 18, 2013 Full Review

Gene Siskel

Chicago Tribune

Top Critic

A merciless, demoniac satire in the future imperfect.

August 22, 2008 Full Review

TIME Magazine

Top Critic

Stanley Kubrick's latest film takes the heavy realities of the 'do-your-thing' and 'law-and-order' syndromes, runs them through a cinematic centrifuge, and spews forth the commingled comic horrors of a regulated society.

May 8, 2007 Full Review | Comment (1)

A.D. Murphy

Variety

Top Critic

A very bad film -- snide, barely competent, and overdrawn -- that enjoys a perennial popularity, perhaps because its confused moral position appeals to the secret Nietzscheans within us.

May 8, 2007 Full Review | Comments (116)

Dave Kehr

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

A sexless, inhuman film, whose power derives from a ruthless subordination of its content to the demands of telling a good story.

February 9, 2006 Full Review | Comments (28)

Time Out

Top Critic

A violent meditation on violence. Not for kids.

January 1, 2011 Full Review | Comments (3)

Afsheen Nomai

Common Sense Media

The rare film that hits you in the head and stomach simultaneously.

September 4, 2010 Full Review

Jason Newman

Bullz-Eye.com

[VIDEO ESSAY] There's Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," and then there's everything else.

July 25, 2009 Full Review | Comments (13)

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

The music made me do it

June 28, 2009 Full Review | Comment (1)

S. James Wegg

JWR

Producer-director Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel is a strangely overwhelming experience %u2013 at time contemptible, and yet always valid in its sardonic outlook.

July 23, 2008 Full Review | Comment (1)

Steve Biodrowski

ESplatter

Ambitious and stylized (perhaps to a fault), Kubrick's poignantly prophetic satire of crime and punishment, redemption and free will, is still much misunderstood by critics emphasizing its ultra-violence.

February 22, 2008 Full Review | Comment (1)

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

The fiercely ironic A Clockwork Orange has held up over time as a provocative comic horror show.

November 19, 2007 Full Review

Jeremiah Kipp

Slant Magazine

Spectacular, operatic, colorful, and exquisitely photographed.

November 19, 2007 Full Review

Jeremiah Kipp

Slant Magazine

All of Kubricks films have generated controversy, but this one engendered outright hostility.

November 3, 2007 Full Review

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

...its tongue-in-cheek humor, its stylized imagery, and McDowell's performance are worth every minute of one's time. (HD DVD Edition)

November 3, 2007 Full Review

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

Directed with assurance and filled with the cynicism, paranoia, visual flair (and lurid titillation) that characterised so much of his work, this is vintage Kubrick and classic cinema.

October 2, 2007 Full Review

Film4

Remains as unsettling and shocking today as the day it was released.

July 30, 2007 Full Review | Comment (1)

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

Who else but Stanley Kubrick could successfully direct an ultra-stylish, sci-fi cult film about the impossibility of redemption in the absence of freely willed sin?

May 8, 2007 Full Review | Comments (2)

TV Guide's Movie Guide

Ice cold, indecent, and way too obvious to be in any way deep.

February 9, 2006 Full Review | Comments (29)

Jake Euker

F5 (Wichita, KS)

• 1. Alex: I'm singing in the rain. Just singing in the rain. What a glorious feelin' I'm happy again.
  – Submitted by russell b (3 months ago)
• 1. Alex: There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.
  – Submitted by Alex L (4 months ago)
• 1. Alex: Viddy well, little brother. Viddy well.
  – Submitted by Tomass P (4 months ago)
• 1. Alex: [while torturing Frank & his wife; singing] I'm Singing in the Rain, just Singing in the Rain. What a glorious feeling, I'm happy again...
  – Submitted by David E (4 months ago)
• 1. Alex: There were some sophistos from the TV studio right around the corner. The devotchka was smiling away... jollying and vigoreeting. Then suddenly, my friends, the disc on the stereo faded out. And in the short lapse before the other one started, she came in with a burst of singing...
  – Submitted by Dave M (5 months ago)
• 1. Alex: Hey, dad... there's a strange fella sitting in the sofa. Munchy-wunching lobschticks of toast.
  – Submitted by Dave M (5 months ago)