BIBLIOGRAPHY

To the best of my knowledge, this annotated bibliography includes every English-language book written about or by Stanley Kubrick as of 7/16/99.  It does not include dissertations, theses, periodical articles, or unpublished screenplays.  Unpublished scripts for many Kubrick films are available from Script City (ph#: 213-871-0707) and Hollywood Scripts (ph#: 818-980-3545); on the Web, try Drew's Script-O-Rama.

Most of the following works are devoted entirely to Kubrick; books which discuss him in just a chapter may not necessarily appear here.  Only some of the following works are in print; these include ISBN numbers.

To purchase out-of-print books, try Advanced Book Exchange or Bibliofind; to borrow them, try your library's interlibrary loan department.

• Agel, Jerome. The Making of Kubrick's 2001.  New York: New American Library, 1970.  A terrific resource for all things 2001 -- profiles of  Kubrick, technical details about the film, press reviews, letters from fans (and detractors), interviews with the film's many consultants.  Not as handsome as Bizony's book (below), but more informative.

• Baxter, John.  Stanley Kubrick: A Biography.  London: HarperCollins, 1997.  Highly readable, if a bit cynical.  Notable for being the first book to truly humanize Kubrick, warts and all.  Baxter convinced many close Kubrick acquaintances to talk, and he asks the right questions.

• Bizony, Piers.  2001: Filming the Future.  London: Aurum Press, 1994 (ISBN: 1854103652).  A beautifully illustrated guide to the world of 2001.

• Ciment, Michel.  Kubrick.  1st American ed.  New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1983.  One of the best guides to Kubrick's work.  An attractive large-format book with insightful visual and textual analyses of recurring motifs in the films, as well as three lengthy interviews with Kubrick about  A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, and The Shining.  Kubrick himself was closely involved in the making of this book.

• Coyle, Wallace.  Stanley Kubrick: A Guide to References and Resources.  Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980.  A good source for pre-1980 bibliographies (including periodical articles).

• DeVries, Daniel.  The Films of Stanley Kubrick.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973.  A basic and very brief (75 pages) guide to the filmmaker's work, up to A Clockwork Orange.

• Falsetto, Mario.  Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis.  Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1994 (ISBN: 0275950824). Falsetto's critical study (which began as a doctoral dissertation) argues that Kubrick's films are best understood as explorations in duality.

• Howard, James.  The Stanley Kubrick Companion.  London: Batsford, 1999 (ISBN: 071348487X).  A new book which I was not able to review.

• Jenkins, Greg.  Stanley Kubrick and the Art of Adaptation: Three Novels, Three Films.  Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997 (ISBN: 0786402814).  Discusses the problems of processes of adapting literature to the screen.  Focusing on three Kubrick films -- Lolita, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket -- Jenkins comprehensively analyzes the films and source novels.

• Kagan, Norman.  The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick.  New expanded ed.  New York: Continuum, 1989 (ISBN: 0826404278).  A solid introduction to the major themes in Kubrick's films, though a bit simplistic.  Provides lengthy synopses of films no longer available for screening, like Fear and Desire and Kubrick's shorts.

• Kolker, Robert Phillip.  A Cinema of Loneliness.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1988 (ISBN: 0195053907).  The chapter on Kubrick is highly perceptive; Kolker is one of the best academic film critics.

• Kubrick, Stanley, and Frederic Raphael and Arthur Schnitzler.  Eyes Wide Shut.  New York: Warner Books, September 1999 (ISBN: 0446676322).  Includes the complete screenplay by Kubrick and Raphael, the Schnitzler novella Traumnovelle on which the film is based, and 16 pages of photos from the film.

• Kubrick, Stanley.  Full Metal Jacket: The Screenplay.  New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House, 1987.  The full text of the script (dialogue and description) and many color illustrations.

• Kubrick, Stanley.  Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange': Based on the Novel by Anthony Burgess.  New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.  An example of what was once called a "published photoplay."  Dozens of stills, but the only text is the film's dialogue.

• LoBrutto, Vincent.  Stanley Kubrick: A Biography.  New York: D.I. Fine, 1997 (ISBN: 0306809060).  The lengthiest biography of Kubrick to date, but not the most revealing.  Considerable detail about Kubrick's childhood and early adult years, including many rare photos.  Like Baxter (above), LoBrutto convinced many Kubrick associates to talk, but he didn't find subjects as interesting as Baxter's, or perhaps he didn't ask the right questions.  For sheer amount of information -- trivial though much of it is -- this book has no equal.

• Mainar, Luis M.  Narrative and Stylistic Patterns in the Films of Stanley Kubrick.  Columbia: Camden House, 1999 (ISBN: 1571132643).  A new book which I was not able to review.

• Monaco, James.  The Films of Stanley Kubrick.  New York: New School Department of Film, 1974.  I could not locate a copy for review.

• Nelson, Thomas Allen.  Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982 (ISBN: 0253202833).  A scholarly study of Kubrick's work, exhaustive but slow going at times.

• Perspectives on Stanley Kubrick.  New York: G.K. Hall, 1996 (ISBN: 0816119910).  A collection of previously published writing about Kubrick, including technical pieces (Kubrick's groundbreaking cinematography in Barry Lyndon, for example).  Includes some of his best interviews, like the lengthy 1968 Playboy interview about 2001.

• Phillips, Gene D.  Stanley Kubrick: A Film Odyssey.  New York: Popular Library, 1977. A popular introduction to Kubrick's films, liberally illustrated with photos, some rare.  Includes an interview with the filmmaker.

• Raphael, Frederic.  Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick.  New York: Ballantine Books, 1999 (ISBN: 0345437764).  Kubrick's writing collaborator on EWS ostensibly wrote this to explore the filmmaker, but Raphael ends up writing more about himself.  It's been greeted with mixed reviews, mostly hostile.

• Schwam, Stephanie, ed. The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey. New York: Modern Library, 2000.
  
  
• Walker, Alexander.  Stanley Kubrick Directs.  Rev. and expanded.  New York: Norton, 1999 (ISBN: 039304601X).  The best single introduction to Kubrick.  Walker, an astute film critic and personal friend to Kubrick, was given rare access to the filmmaker. Critically insightful without being boring, well illustrated, very readable.

• Wheat, Leonard F. Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, June 2000. 

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Last Update March 13, 2007