Poster © Warner Bros.. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreCrime & Sci-Fi
RatedNot Rated
Runtime2 hr 16 mins
ReleasedFebruary 2, 1972
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringMalcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Adrienne Corri
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A Clockwork Orange (1971)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| A Clockwork Orange's Details | |
| Genre | Crime & Sci-Fi |
| Rated | Not Rated |
| Released | 12/19/1971 (New York City); 01/13/1972 (United Kingdom); 02/02/1972 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 2 hr 16 mins |
| Budget | $1.3M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Based On | A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess |
| Country | United Kingdom, United States |
| Language | English |
| A Clockwork Orange's Interests | |
| General | Bowler hats, milk bars, one false eyelash, invented slang, and very loud Beethoven. |
| Music | Wendy Carlos, who rebuilt Beethoven and Purcell on a Moog synthesizer. |
| Movies | Dr. Strangelove (1964). More Kubrick, more people in charge who should not be. |
| Television | Black Mirror. Same big question about technology fixing people, different decade. |
| Heroes | Ludwig van Beethoven. Alex's favorite, and the film's loudest guest star. |
| A Clockwork Orange's Crew | |
| Director | Stanley Kubrick |
| Writers | Stanley Kubrick |
| Producers | Stanley Kubrick |
| Cinematography | John Alcott |
| Music | Wendy Carlos |
| Edited By | Bill Butler |
| Production | Polaris Productions, Hawk Films |
| Distributed By | Warner Bros. (United States), Columbia-Warner Distributors (United Kingdom) |
How do you score a movie that makes you hang out with the worst person in it for a whole act, then asks you to feel sorry for him? That’s the trap, and Stanley Kubrick sets it on purpose. The opening stretch is hard to sit through, cruelty shot like a music video, and some of it seems more interested in looking cool than in the people getting hurt. Malcolm McDowell is the reason it works anyway. He plays Alex with a grin that stays charming one second too long, talking in a made-up slang you somehow follow by the second scene. The milk bar, the bowler hats, the fake eyelashes on one eye, every frame looks like nothing else ever made. Then the government’s cure shows up and the movie becomes a real argument about free will that still stings. It made $26.6 million domestic on a reported $1.3M budget. An 8.6 because it’s brilliant and ugly in equal measure, and it knows it. $53 says you hear Beethoven in a waiting room and get a weird chill.
What works: Malcolm McDowell’s magnetic, unsettling lead, a look nobody has copied well since, and a free will argument that still lands.
What doesn’t: The opening cruelty is shot with so much style it can feel like the movie cares more about the look than the people hurt.
Who it’s for: Adults who want a film that argues with them and are ready for a very hard first act.
Spoilers
The treatment leaves Alex sick at the very thought of violence and unable to enjoy Beethoven, and his old victims and former gang turn the tables on him. After a desperate fall from a window lands him in the hospital, the government reverses the cure for good press, and Alex is back to his old self.
In a grimy near-future Britain, teenager Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) spends his days skipping school and his nights leading his gang, Dim (Warren Clarke), Georgie (James Marcus) and Pete (Michael Tarn), on sprees of shocking violence. His other great love is Beethoven. Alex is charming, cruel and totally without remorse, and the adults in his life seem powerless to stop him. When the law finally catches up, the government has an experimental idea for fixing boys like Alex. Stanley Kubrick directs. One hundred thirty-six minutes, strictly for grown-ups.
Film students and grown-ups. Everyone else, come back in a few years.
| Malcolm McDowell | Alex DeLarge |
| Patrick Magee | Frank Alexander |
| Michael Bates | Chief Guard Barnes |
| Warren Clarke | Dim |
| John Clive | stage actor |
| Adrienne Corri | Mary Alexander |
| Carl Duering | Dr Brodsky |
| Paul Farrell | tramp |
| Clive Francis | Joe the Lodger |
| Michael Gover | prison governor |
| Miriam Karlin | "Catlady" Weathers |
| James Marcus | Georgie |
| Aubrey Morris | P. R. Deltoid |
| Godfrey Quigley | prison chaplain |
| Sheila Raynor | Alex's mother |
| Madge Ryan | Dr Branom |
| John Savident | conspirator Dolin |
| Anthony Sharp | Frederick |
| Philip Stone | Alex's father |
| Pauline Taylor | Dr Taylor |
| Margaret Tyzack | conspirator Rubinstein |
| Michael Tarn | Pete |
| Gillian Hills | Sonietta |
| Virginia Wetherell | Stage Dancer |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +360 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $27.2M; Domestic box office $26.6M; Profit / loss (est.) +$11.6M; Rotten Tomatoes 85%; box office chart updated; RT 85% (91 reviews); Metacritic 77 / 100; IMDb users 8.2 / 10 (947,507 votes); movie.guru score 9.2.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 17 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.