Stanley Kubrick was born in the Bronx, New York, and became a skilled photographer before he went into directing. He achieved fame with the fine antiwar film Paths of Glory in 1957, and his output since then has been extremely diversified. Through it all, however, runs a deep vein of pessimism. Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and A Clockwork Orange (1972) express his vision of an apocalyptic future, while Spartacus (1959) and Barry Lyndon (1975) reveal his dark view of futility in the past.
Kubrick has been able to work independently for most of his career, enjoying the rare right to make the final cuts of his films without studio interference. Some of his other notable films are Lolita (1954), based on Vladimir Nabokov's novel, and Full Metal Jacket (1987), about troops in the Vietnam War.
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