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Fear and Desire (1953)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 6.2/10
Reviews Counted: 9
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 1

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Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 2
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 0

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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 934

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Movie Info

Legendary director Stanley Kubrick made his feature debut with this allegorical drama about war. Four soldiers whose plane has crashed discover they're behind enemy lines in an unnamed country. Desperate to escape, they decide to build a raft and travel up the nearby river into allied country. However, their presence is discovered by a local woman who stumbles across them in the woods, and they learn that an enemy general is nearby, determined to flush them out. Stanley Kubrick served as

Unrated, 1 hr. 8 min.

Drama

Directed By: Stanley Kubrick

In Theaters: Apr 1, 1953 Wide

Cast

Frank Silvera
Mac
Kenneth Harp
Lt. Corby
Paul Mazursky
Sidney
Steve Coit
Fletcher
Virginia Leith
The Girl
David Allen
Narrator

Critic Reviews for Fear and Desire

All Critics (10) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (8) | Rotten (1)

Treat it like a wobbly, precocious demo from a 24-year-old with mighty aspirations, filled with hints of what he would become, and you'll be properly enthralled.

March 27, 2012 Full Review Source: Village Voice

| Comment

Tim Grierson

Village Voice

Top Critic

If Fear and Desire is uneven and sometimes reveals an experimental rather than a polished exterior, its over-all effect is entirely worthy of the sincere effort put into it.

September 26, 2002 Full Review Source: New York Times

| Comment

Janet Maslin

New York Times

Top Critic

Although some visuals are striking chiaroscuro, the film still comes across as tyro self-conscious, a belaboring of theme by one not yet sure of his art.

March 22, 2012 Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews

| Comment

Donald J. Levit

ReelTalk Movie Reviews

For all its heavy-handed gloom and stylistic unevenness, Fear and Desire has a certain fierceness that's hard to shake.

March 17, 2012 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine

| Comment

Nick Schager

Slant Magazine

Kubrick's lugubrious, arresting, disavowed feature debut

August 30, 2011 Full Review Source: CinePassion

| Comment

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

Its sole distinction is that it's a Kubrick film.

July 7, 2009 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews

| Comment

Dennis Schwartz

Ozus' World Movie Reviews

[A] highly promising first effort by one of America's premiere filmmakers.

February 12, 2007 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide

| Comment

TV Guide's Movie Guide

Stanley Kubrick's long-unseen first feature film, recommended solely as a curio.

April 29, 2003 Full Review Source: Film Threat

| Comment

Phil Hall

Film Threat

It's probably the film's metaphorical riffs that Kubrick found most pretentious

September 24, 2002 Full Review | Comment

Shane Burridge

rec.arts.movies.reviews

More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Fear and Desire

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Kubrick's first (and little seen) feature is clunky and mishandled. It's fair to see that he loathed this film and did his best to keep it out of circulation forever; however, much like Killer's Kiss, one can really see the seeds of a budding phenom at work -- how he plays with chiaroscuro lighting, the unorthodox

March 24, 2012

Jonathan Hutchings

Super Reviewer

Stanley Kubrick's first feature film is also his least seen, mainly because until Kubrick's death, the film had been locked away in the vaults at his request. This should give you some idea as to the film's quality. It's not that Fear and Desire is a bad movie, it's just that it's still very amateurish (Kubrick was

January 8, 2012

First Last

Super Reviewer

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