Were the late Stanley Kubrick still alive, he’d be celebrating his 85th birthday today, and undoubtedly be working on a new film that would puzzle, delight, fascinate and intrigue and keep him in the ranks of the cinema’s foremost talents. To speak of his influence would be redundant—you should already know that his filmography just in terms of ambition and accomplishment has been matched by very few, if any directors. And even as Spike Lee listed "Paths Of Glory," "Spartacus" and "Dr. Strangelove" as the essential Kubrick movies every filmmaker should see, you could easily toss in "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Barry Lyndon" and "A Clockwork Orange," and few would debate you.
So instead of spending paragraphs trying to summarize the titanic talent that was Kubrick, who passed away in 1999 shortly after completing "Eyes Wide Shut," here’s the excellent documentary "Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures." Running 2 hours and 20 minutes and directed by Kubrick’s longtime collaborator Jan Harlan, it’s almost everything you need to know about the filmmaker and it boasts an incredible array of participants including Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Jack Nicholson, Sydney Pollack, Malcolm McDowell and more. It’s must-see viewing for any Kubrick fan and if you have already seen it, it’s worth a revisit. So blow out the candles and click below.