The most complete account yet of one of the most original and stimulating film-makers of the post-war years: Paths of Glory, Dr Strangelove, Lolita, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Barry Lindon, Full Metal Jacket …

That Stanley Kubrick has maintained his mystique for nearly forty years is both a tribute to his exceptional powers as a film-maker and a consequence of his decision to live and work on his own terms, whatever the price. For decades his films have distilled the essence of the age: from 'Paths of Glory' (1957), 'Lolita' (1962), 'Dr Strangelove' (1964) and '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968) to 'A Clockwork Orange' (1971), 'Barry Lyndon' (1975), 'The Shining' (1980) and 'Full Metal Jacket' (1987). With his latest film ('Eyes Wide Shut'), Kubrick has added to the gallery of indelible images that will last as long as the cinema.

With the help of actors, writers, directors, technicians and childhood friends, John Baxter offers the most complete account yet of Kubrick's extraordinary life and work.

‘Baxter has spoken to everyone… Of proven excellence in cinema biographies, he spares us extensive analysis for the sake of the wondrous narrative… and does a stupendous job of putting together the parts of the famous monster.’
BRIAN ALDISS, 'Daily Telegraph'

‘John Baxter's highly readable biography makes Kubrick maddening, endearing and paranoid in equal portions…Many of the stories are riveting.’
NIGEL ANDREWS, 'Financial Times'

‘In this superbly readable biography, John Baxter traces Kubrick's career from the day this spoilt Jewish boy from the Bronx was given a camera for his thirteenth birthday to his present situation as an eccentric recluse hiding away in a remote Hertfordshire mansion.’
GERALD KAUFMAN, 'Sunday Telegraph'

The most complete account yet of one of the most original and stimulating film-makers of the post-war years: Paths of Glory, Dr Strangelove, Lolita, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Barry Lindon, Full Metal Jacket …

A biography of this pre-eminent cultural figure is long overdue. Few film-makers have managed to maintain their mystique over forty years; Kubrick succeeded by preparing his films for years, so that each distilled the essence of the zeitgeist. To the generation of the 1950s, he was one of the few directors to achieve, with Paths of Glory, the dignity and stature of the European cinema in an American film. To 1960s audiences, he’s the man who made both Dr Strangelove, the ultimate anti-war movie, and the counter-culture classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the 1970s he created that archetypal hymn to urban violence, A Clockwork Orange. In the 1980s, he put Stephen King on screen in The Shining.

In continental Europe especially, Kubrick is regarded as one of the handful of great living film-makers. Born in the Bronx in 1928 of Central European stock, Kubrick still lives in moody seclusion in Borehamwood, where he bought a house soon after moving to the UK in 1961.