A hypnotic, unsettling late Kubrick film that turns sexual jealousy, class anxiety, and fantasy into a slow-burn nightmare. It’s less a conventional thriller than a dreamlike descent into obsession, with immaculate craft and a deliberately chilly emotional distance.
Eyes Wide Shut
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Drama · Thriller
Fri · 2h 40m
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack
Overview
After Dr. Bill Harford's wife, Alice, admits to having sexual fantasies about a man she met, Bill becomes obsessed with having a sexual encounter. He discovers an underground sexual group and attends one of their meetings -- and quickly discovers that he is in over his head.
Director
Stanley Kubrick
Cast
Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack
Curator Review
Verdict
A hypnotic, unsettling late Kubrick film that turns sexual jealousy, class anxiety, and fantasy into a slow-burn nightmare. It’s less a conventional thriller than a dreamlike descent into obsession, with immaculate craft and a deliberately chilly emotional distance.
Best for
Viewers who like psychological mysteries with an eerie, dream logic
Fans of slow cinema and meticulous visual composition
People interested in marriage, desire, and power dynamics
Viewers open to ambiguity and a deliberately detached tone
Skip if
You want a fast-moving thriller with clear answers
You dislike explicit sexual content or ritual imagery
You prefer emotionally warm or straightforward character drama
You get impatient with long, controlled, highly stylized pacing
Overview
Eyes Wide Shut is one of those films that feels less watched than entered. Kubrick turns a simple premise into a controlled fever dream, where every hallway, apartment, and masked gathering seems to hum with threat, temptation, and social performance. The result is hypnotic, funny in a deadpan way, and deeply unnerving.
Worth noting
What lingers most is how the film treats desire as something unstable and theatrical rather than romantic or liberating. It’s about jealousy, but also about class, secrecy, and the strange rituals people use to protect themselves from humiliation. The performances are deliberately restrained, which makes the emotional pressure feel even stranger.
Bottom line
It may frustrate viewers looking for a conventional mystery payoff, but that’s part of its power. The movie’s real subject is not solving a secret society, but watching a man lose his grip on certainty while the world around him remains polished, indifferent, and a little obscene.
Top Letterboxd reviews
maria (4.5★) · 28558 likes
this isn't even a thriller, rich people just be like that
kayla (5★) · 25501 likes
Idk about you guys but I could see Tom Cruise attending something like this in real life
sree (4★) · 22741 likes
this is exactly what i think scientology is
•lily• (5★) · 16949 likes
A film about a guy who fucks around and finds out
Jay (4.5★) · 16129 likes
his dick lead him to places I wouldn’t even go with a gun
Themes
sexual jealousy, marital tension, desire and fantasy, class and privilege, secrecy and ritual, alienation, identity and performance, obsession