Stanley Kubrick’s polarizing, powerful psychosexual odyssey finally receives a reverent 4K UHD release from Criterion
From Fear and Desire through Full Metal Jacket, Stanley Kubrick repeatedly reinvented whatever genre he touched, without ever sacrificing his preternatural command of image and tone. That towering legacy helps explain why the feverish anticipation around Eyes Wide Shut seemed to doom it from the start–and why it stands as Kubrick’s staggering final cinematic statement.
After a secretive, record-setting 400-day shoot–and an edit interrupted by Kubrick’s sudden death–Eyes Wide Shut ultimately repelled many of the same critics who had been desperate to see it. Some called it a “grotesque, preposterous flop,” while others saw it as a definitive limits-test of the MPAA rating system due to ongoing censorship battles over the film’s centerpiece orgy. The film’s Variety review astutely noted how it’d inevitably “have trouble living up to all the extreme and diverse expectations viewers may have for it.” It’s an ironic sentiment, as Eyes Wide Shut itself is about larger-than-life fantasies–of perversions, power, and both intermingled–doomed to wither in the harsh light of reality.
Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) live a life of upper-class security, anchored by Bill’s successful Manhattan medical practice and a comfortable Lower East Side condo. Their facade of stability cracks during a Christmas party hosted by Bill’s wealthy patient, Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack), as the evening sets the couple on two unsettling paths. Bill is forced to manage the near-fatal overdose of Ziegler’s mistress, while both he and Alice face separate, provocative temptations that question their devotion to one another. While Bill is certain that Alice is incapable of being unfaithful to him, Alice reveals just how close she came to doing so on a past family vacation. His ego shaken, Bill uses a late-night house call as a pretext for a dreamlike odyssey of sexual retaliation–one that quickly spirals into something far darker.
The free-association surreality of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 Traumnovelle (Dream Story) is evoked in Kubrick’s film from the start. A sense of uncanniness permeates the aspirational banality of the Harfords’ preparations for Ziegler’s party–and in the illuminated-eye-laden party itself–a feeling that only deepens as Bill sets off on his solitary quest. It’s in the way that every setting has the same-patterned Christmas lights on the trees; how the long takes filled with glamorous, bantering partygoers grow to feel painfully strained; and how Kubrick’s fastidious recreations of New York City streets barely disguise the fact that despite the changing, lived-in shops, Bill somehow keeps circling the same block as if trapped in a near-timeloop–reinforced by the brief rear-projection shots of Cruise walking in place. Instead of grounding us in reality, Kubrick’s perfectionism builds a deliberate unreality, a world of upper-class cosplay clinging to the illusion of festive normalcy as a means of sidestepping any real emotional truth.
Such discordant settings draw our attention to Cruise and Kidman themselves, and how these top-of-the-world celebrities turn in self-conscious performances as an upper-middle-class couple pretending, for fleeting evenings, that they belong to the social elite. It’s an illusion both actors and audience can barely convince themselves of–a subconscious resistance that, in my opinion, wholly gels with Kubrick’s unreality. It’s as if Tom/Bill and Nicole/Alice–and their puppeteer behind the camera–believe they can manufacture the reality of who they claim to be with the right amount of superficial window dressing, all while masking flaws and desires that might truly define them. It’s an idea wonderfully evoked in the film’s original poster, abandoned by the studio and resurrected as Criterion’s cover art.
What makes Eyes Wide Shut so damn funny, in this light, is just how pratfallen Cruise’s would-be lothario proves to be. For all the money and supposed charisma he tosses around, Bill may just be the most inept man to go out on the prowl. Sure, the Universe throws him some curveballs–but for the most part, Bill approaches sex with all the charm and prowess of JD Vance picking out donuts: his “What do you recommend?” to Vinessa Shaw’s escort lands with as much heat as the VP’s “Whatever makes sense.” With his hollow charm laid so bare, it feels miraculous he’s married at all–let alone a father. The pursuit of desire feels doomed from the outset, long before Bill stumbles into that seductive spider-web of a secret orgy, sacrificing the sex appeal of Hollywood’s golden boy for unexpected, wholly effective comedy.
Part of the problem is that sex, for Bill–and for many men in the film–isn’t a desire in itself so much as a way to shore up the dream of social status. The commodification of sex as power is everywhere, from the models drifting through Ziegler’s party to the costume-shop owner who treats his underage daughter as another rentable accessory. Bill’s only truly consummated intimacy happens in front of a mirror–and only after he knows Alice chose him over a wealthier rival. Content with the “win,” he looks away–blissfully unaware that Alice’s desire lies entirely elsewhere. For Bill, Alice’s desire has to be an extension of his own; that’s simply how the world works, no matter how much he insists otherwise. The fact that her sexuality can exist apart from him, on its own terms and beyond his definitions, is not just unsettling–it’s existentially terrifying, fueling his directionless quest for ego-healing sexual revenge.
The film’s central ritual orgy sequence fuses pleasure and power into one idea: that some desires become accessible only when one has the power to pursue them. For example, queerness on the streets appears as failed flirtation by service staff or as the target of homophobic abuse from swaggering party bros–equated with lack, impotence, and social vulnerability in the midst of performative straighthood. Meanwhile, behind iron gates and distant locked doors, the wealthy elite explore sex beyond heteronormative and monogamous limits. When money places nearly every pleasure within reach, it makes sense that sacralizing transgression becomes the next taboo thrill–which makes sex that much more inseparable from the power these elites have obtained. Yet even they know how fragile that freedom is: they indulge under ornate masks, always aware that exposure would be catastrophic.
This sequence also deeply underscores how Bill is naturally incapable of attaining either sex or power, since his understanding of both is so inherently limited. He may know the garb and the password to get through the gate–but try as he might, Bill is the kind of guy who will never know the password for the house (or even that there was one in the first place). Immediately identified as an outsider, he is rejected by this elite ecosystem like an immune system attacking a virus. His expulsion culminates in his unmasking: the ultimate failure in a quest that ends not with fulfillment, but exposure.
Bill learns nothing from this humiliation but potential guilt over potentially causing several deaths and disappearances–and Eyes’ second half shifts Bill’s drive from getting one over on Alice to seemingly turning the tables on his elite exposeurs. But this world of doubles, misunderstandings, and near-brushes with death, disease, and all other sorts of consequences leads Bill to even more devastating conclusions. Not only has he failed to achieve sex, power, or belonging–he’s seemingly revealed to have failed at even being the main character in his own story. He fails to understand the underlying nature of every situation he found himself in the night before, of his marriage, of his closest friendships and professional links. All his self-perceived charm and bravado is nothing but an ornate mask that’s quick to slip and be misplaced–only to end up in the possession of his wife, the woman he claimed yet failed to understand most.
Given the overwhelming–yet underwhelming–oneiric odyssey that Cruise’s hapless doctor endures, the fact that Eyes Wide Shut seems to have “ruined” the fantasies of its initial audience only augments the impact of Kubrick’s final film. Just as Bill’s quest for transgression ends in frustration and humiliation, viewers expecting a film that would gratify or push sexual boundaries were met with a narrative about the inevitable failure of those very desires. Kubrick reinvents the erotic thriller by turning its star into an impotent, misogynistic fool convinced of his own magnetism, while the women around him are trapped in lives with few legitimate avenues to pursue their own wants, forced to bear the weight of imposed heteronormative desire. His meticulous worlds feel false by design, laying bare how authentic desire feels sucked of life or attainability by relentless stratification and commodification.
With such constant emotional hunger as the aspirational norm, the most frightening prospect is that we could ever be vulnerable enough to risk sharing our deepest desires with those closest to us–turning whatever desires we keep hidden behind masks of gentility less liberating than profoundly, claustrophobically isolating and self-destructive. Eyes Wide Shut may not have been the film audiences wanted in 1999, but time has revealed it as something else: a melancholy, necessary masterpiece about what happens when fantasies–erotic, cinematic, and otherwise–finally meet reality.
Video/Audio
Criterion presents Eyes Wide Shut in a brand new 4K restoration from the film’s original 35mm negative of the International cut, supervised by cinematographer Larry Smith and using a 35mm theatrical print from Warner Brothers as a reference. The restoration is presented in 2160p 4K with Dolby Vision HDR on the UHD disc, and in a 1080p transfer on the accompanying Blu-ray. The 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on both discs was restored from the film’s original 35mm magnetic track. Continuing their welcome trend of increased accessibility, Criterion provides SDH subtitles for the feature film and all of the accompanying Special Features–the latter of which are all found on Blu-ray Two in this set.
Note: Previous releases have presented Eyes Wide Shut in various aspect ratios–from 1.33:1 Academy ratio for VHS and DVD and 1.78:1 on past Warner Bros Blu-ray versions, in keeping with Kubrick’s previously-related intentions for home media. Per Larry Smith, this version of Eyes Wide Shut presents the film in 1.85:1, Kubrick’s standard “theatrical” aspect ratio for his films, including EWS during its original release.
For all of Kubrick’s reputation as a cold filmmaker, Eyes Wide Shut is such a dazzlingly colorful film–one whose textures and extensive palette heighten the film’s overwhelming sense of un-reality as much as its dedicated to realism. Primary colors pop most in the HDR transfer, especially in recurring usage of gaudy, eye-grabbing Christmas lights, but most notably in icy-blue fantasy sequences and the fiery blush of red lighting on wood panels. Smith’s use of diegetic light gives primary sources an otherworldly glow even as other details remain crisp and clear. As noted in several other reviews of this disc, this transfer’s most noticeable detail is the extensive grain structure: a layer of wriggling texture veiled over the film that makes it feel as alive as fastidiously constructed, a detail of Eyes Wide Shut borne from the negative’s extensive post-processing to push up the aforementioned color palette and lighting contrast.
The restored 5.1 surround audio track also feels magnetically precise, balancing dialogue, inlaid foley work and background audio, and the film’s sparse score with judicious aim. The later usage of solo piano notes in particular cut like a knife whenever they’re used, pairing perfectly with Nigel Galt’s patient, purposeful editing.
Smith has also noted that like David Fincher with Se7en earlier in 2025, this restoration proved an opportunity to further correct color aberrations or production errors in ways Eyes Wide Shut’s post-production process (and Kubrick’s tragic passing) didn’t allow for, such as a revamped, more nuanced color grade and digital removal of stray crewmembers from shots. While the cut still remains the director’s own, finished before his passing, most discerning eyes can consider this new restoration of Eyes Wide Shut the final completion (as best as we can determine) of Stanley Kubrick’s final film over 25 years since its initial release.
Special Features
Criterion assembles a stellar package of extras, including several near-feature-length extras from Warner Brothers’ previous releases as well as archival interviews and conferences, promotional materials, and a trio of insightful new interviews with Kubrick crew members and archivists. Together, they create a vital wealth of context for Kubrick’s final film, its literary inspirations, its infamous production, and its controversial reception in the wake of its creator’s sudden passing. Completists would be wise to hold onto their previous releases for any missing extras–but the diverse selection here more than covers any potential territory for discussion.
- Larry Smith: A new interview with cinematographer Larry Smith, who recounts his friendship with Kubrick from his early days as a day-player turned gaffer on Barry Lyndon to the mammoth 400-day shoot on Eyes Wide Shut, including specific technical insight into the camera tests and film processing utilized for both the film and its new restoration.
- Lisa Leone: A new interview with set decorator and second-unit director Lisa Leone, who recounts how her initial experiences as a music video filmmaker as part of New York City’s emerging hip-hop scene introduced her to Viviane Kubrick, which eventually led to an instrumental job capturing reference photos, set dressing, and second-unit photography for the UK-bound director for Eyes Wide Shut’s meticulously-recreated sets–even capturing last-minute shots for the film after Kubrick’s death.
- Georgina Orgill: A new interview with the University of the Arts London’s Kubrick archivist Georgina Orgill, in which she pulls various drafts, storyboards, news articles and other historical documents to piece together the decades-long journey of Kubrick’s adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle.
- Christiane Kubrick: A 2012 archival interview with Christiane Kubrick, director Stanley Kubrick’s wife and collaborator, discussing her shared introduction to and evolving views on both Schnitzler’s novel and Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.
- Never Just a Dream, a 2019 short film created for the 20th anniversary of Eyes Wide Shut, featuring interviews with producer Jan Harlan, daughter Katharina Kubrick, and Kubrick assistant Anthony Frewin, framed around the piecework completion of Eyes Wide Shut in the wake of Kubrick’s death. This short also preceded the 20th Anniversary screening of the film at the 76th Venice Film Festival.
- Lost Kubrick: The Unfinished Films of Stanley Kubrick: A 2007 archival documentary diving into abandoned Kubrick projects AI: Artificial Intelligence, Napoleon, and The Aryan Papers, featuring interviews with Jack Nicholson, Sydney Pollack, Jan Harlan, Anthony Frewin, WB Marketing Executive John Calley, novelist Louis Begley, Joseph Mazzello, and more.
- Kubrick Remembered: a 2014 archival documentary previously included on Warner Brothers’ Masterpiece Collection spanning Kubrick’s massive career, featuring interviews with Steven Spielberg and actors Todd Field and Leelee Sobieski.
- D.W. Griffith Award Acceptance Speech: Kubrick’s 1998 acceptance speech for the Directors Guild of America’s D.W. Griffith Award, preceded by an introduction from Jack Nicholson.
- Press Conference: A 36-minute archival press conference from September 1999 featuring producer Harlan and actors Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, discussing the film’s contentious shoot and Kubrick’s directorial style.
- Trailers: In addition to the film’s theatrical trailer and several TV spots, Criterion includes the infamous minute-long CRUISE/KIDMAN/KUBRICK teaser assembled by Kubrick for the 1999 ShoWest convention. It was the first publicly screened footage of the film, shown only 3 days after Kubrick’s death.
- Booklet featuring an essay by author and screenwriter Megan Abbott on the film’s potent themes of fractured marital bonds, the power of feminine desire, and emasculation, in addition to a 1999 interview with Sydney Pollack on his friendship with Kubrick, how he came to replace Harvey Keitel in Eyes Wide Shut, and anecdotes on Kubrick’s on-set relationship to him and his fellow actors.
Eyes Wide Shut is now available on Blu-ray and a 4K/Blu-ray combo package courtesy of the Criterion Collection.
