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A Clockwork Orange

Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven.

1971 · 2h 17m · R Crime, Science Fiction
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

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Overview

In a near-future Britain, young Alexander DeLarge and his pals get their kicks beating and raping anyone they please. When not destroying the lives of others, Alex swoons to the music of Beethoven. The state, eager to crack down on juvenile crime, gives an incarcerated Alex the option to undergo an invasive procedure that'll rob him of all personal agency. In a time when conscience is a commodity, can Alex change his tune?

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
86%
Tomatometer
Rotten

A painless, bloodless, and ultimately pointless futuristic fantasy.

Andrew Sarris, Village Voice
Fresh

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.

Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
Fresh

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.

A.D. Murphy, Variety
Rotten

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.

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Rotten

A Clockwork Orange is an ideological mess, a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

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