Kubrick Stare / Live-Action Films

• Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut are the Trope Namers: all of them are Kubrick films where someone wears this expression. According to stories, the stare was often worn by Kubrick himself when he wanted to look gruff and intimidating on set.
  • Ironically given Stephen King's well-publicized disdain for Kubrick's adaptation, the cover art◊ for the King-written and -approved TV miniseries version of The Shining also features Steven Weber giving his best Kubrick stare.
• American Beauty: by Jane in the very first scene.
• Sir John Gielgud gives one of these in the movie Arthur (1981), although it looks more disapproving◊ than scary.
• Loki does this throughout The Avengers. It's especially terrifying in his first appearance (when combined with his Slasher Smile which takes it up to eleven); justified on that occasion as he's rising his head up from a crouching position.
• Bedazzled (2000): Elliot gives one to the Devil when she says that God exists and is a man, then quips that most men think they're divine, he's just actually right. He also gives another to his not-so-nice co-workers when they mock him near the end.
• Black Narcissus: Sister Ruth delivers a super-scary version of this to Sister Clodagh as a signal that her Sanity Slippage has reached a tipping point.
• Blade Runner: both Pris and Roy do this, the latter during his “Tears In Rain” speech, which is ironic because he has just saved the protagonist and is about to die.
• Some freak kid does it in The Box.
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari might be the first example of this trope◊ in film. The actor doing the stare is Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who also popularized Milking the Giant Cow in Metropolis.
• Capote: Perry Smith does one later in the film when he confronts Truman about his book's title.
• Edmund Pevensie◊ in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when he is tempted by evil again.
• The Crow (1994): Our main protagonist Eric Draven is quite fond of doing it.◊
• John Murdoch does this in Dark City (1998) after getting a lifetime's worth of training in Tuning injected into his brain. Roger Ebert even points out the Kubrick connection in his audio commentary on the DVD.
• The Joker in The Dark Knight, as his posture is often slightly hunched over, is practically built to give these stares. Perhaps this is most noticeable when he's sitting in the holding cell, even more so when he joins in the clapping for Gordon's promotion. As it happened, Gary Oldman told Heath Ledger after this was shot that his performance was reminding him of Alex in A Clockwork Orange; Ledger admitted he had just been watching that film in his trailer.
• Death Becomes Her: When Ernest is trapped on the roof and hanged on a rain gutter by his suspenders, Helen and Madeline encourage Ernest to drink the potion to survive an impending fall. However, realizing that they only need him for their own selfish reasons, Ernest refuses and drops it to the ground. Then, Helen and Madeleine give him this stare right before he eventually fall.
• Virtually every shot of Jake Gyllenhaal in Donnie Darko is a Kubrick Stare. Apparently, it runs in the family; Maggie Gyllenhaal does an oddly sexy Kubrick stare in a few of her movies, particularly Secretary.
• The Exorcism of Emily Rose: In the last performance of exorcism, the possessed-Emily gives this stare toward Father Moore before running to the barn.
• In The Frolic, an adaptation of Thomas Ligotti's short story, John Doe seems to be giving one every time he looks up from his drawing.
• Girlfight: Diana stares at the camera in this fashion during the first shot of her.
• Connor Macleod gives one of these in Highlander (the first film) when The Kurgan reveals he raped Heather. (She never told Connor, likely fearing he'd go after The Kurgan and get killed.)
• Thorin Oakenshield is much given to these in The Hobbit. When you're a dwarf you don't have much choice but to glare up at people.
  • King Thranduil pulls off some really chilling ones as well, especially fighting orcs. Lord Elrond and Lady Galadriel can really pull off just plain terrifying ones.
• Stane's expression in the poster for Iron Man. Kind of odd — Obie's actually a pretty nice guy.
• IT: Pennywise does this in all the promotional images for the film. His actor, Bill Skarsgård, also pulled a similar face on a few talk shows to show his natural and eerie knack for the expression.
• Try to find a photo of James Cagney where he's in character and isn't doing this. (No surprise that he was one of Kubrick's favorite actors). See Gary Oldman's Tonight Show appearance below for a description of the Cagney version of the Kubrick Stare.
• In the 2000 adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar, King Herod pulls this look toward Jesus just before he really starts going: "At least, that's what you've saaaaaid-" [Fascinating Eyebrow] "-dah."
• In John Wick Keanu Reeves pulls off a rather frightening one to make clear that he's about to go out for blood.
• The 1953 film adaptation of Julius Caesar has Marc Anthony doing this a lot — the actor was Marlon Brando! Underscoring that this movie made Marc Anthony a rather sinister figure.
• Kill Bill Volume 1: Gogo Yubari, O-Ren Ishii's chief bodyguard, gives Kubrick stares in most of her scenes, including her flail-wielding confrontation with The Bride.
• Licence to Kill: Dario, Sanchez's right-hand man, makes this look several times, accompanied with a Slasher Smile.
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • Frodo does one in The Return of the King for just an instant, when he claims the Ring for himself in Mount Doom.
  • Merry gets the effect in The Two Towers when he's yelling at the Ents for refusing to fight, though it's actually incidental due to him having to look up at them.
  • Gandalf also has this effect when he faces the Balrog, again it's incidental due to The Balrog being 35 feet taller than him.
  • In the introduction of The Fellowship of the Ring Isildur gives this look to Elrond when he refuses to destroy the Ring.
• Man of Steel: General Zod does one near the end when his plan to Terraform Earth is foiled and his crew are banished to the Phantom Zone.
  • Zod's actor, Michael Shannon, is actually well-known for doing good Kubrick stares —- appropriately so, considering he's normally typecast as crazed and/or violent types.
• Mandalay boasts a heroic example. During her time in the "Jardin d'Orient" brothel, Sex Slave Tanya shoots one of these aiming right at the camera. Click here◊ to reveal why you shouldn't Kick the Dog.
• Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein gives this stare to John Cleese as Professor Waldman in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The intention is not so much to intimidate as to impress Waldman with Frankenstein's knowledge and dead seriousness about resurrecting the dead.
• Keanu Reeves gives us one after blowing up Smith in The Matrix.
• Naomi Watts, of all people, gives a chilling glare near the end of the film Mulholland Dr..
• Ms. Appleyard at the end of in Picnic at Hanging Rock — an especially disturbing example.
• Norman Stansfield is fond of giving these in The Professional.
• The Prophecy: Quite unsettling to see on a little girl like Mary.
• Norman Bates at the end of Psycho, made in 1960.
• The Defence Secretary gives such a stare to M when he levels various complaints against her and her agency in Quantum of Solace.
• Tommy Wiseau does this in the poster for The Room (link◊).
• James Van Der Beek gives this look in an early scene from The Rules of Attraction, in the scene featuring Kate Bosworth.
• The default expression of the Mad Scientist villain in Runaway. Of course, it only helps when your name is Luther and you're played by Gene Simmons.
• Hannibal Lecter gives a cold, emotionless one in The Silence of the Lambs with an emphasis on creepy because he doesn't blink.
• Kevin, the sociopathic cannibal (no, not the one above) from Sin City, gives an indescribably creepy Kubrick Stare right before he ambushes the protagonist Marv. Marv does one right back upon overhearing the cannibal's name from his prison. "See you later, Kevin."
• Barbara does this in Stark Love when Rob comes to rescue her from brutish Jason, only for Jason to kick Rob's ass. Barbara then rescues herself.
• Star Trek (2009): One of the movie posters has Chris Pine in this pose◊, which unfortunately makes Captain Kirk look like a dead ringer for Dexter.
• In Star Trek Into Darkness, Harrison tilts his head down and to the right, and then angrily stares up at Kirk while delivering his Breaking Speech about the failures of Starfleet.
• Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: When Anakin Skywalker turns evil and becomes Darth Vader, he gets yellow eyes that he always displays by using one of these.
• Throughout the first half of The Ten Commandments, Rameses has this look whenever Moses proves how much more awesome he is at pretty much everything.
• Terminator series:
  • Sarah Connor in the hospital in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
  • Robert Patrick's T-1000, throughout the entirety of the second movie, is a prime example.
  • Terminator's face in the opening credits, even though it lacks eyebrows, is permanently grinning a skull grin.
  • A subversion in the first movie. When Sarah spots Kyle Reese (whom she mistakenly assumes is the killer who's after her) in Tech Noir, he happens to be looking downwards, then he raises his eyes and looks at her; this trope gives him an air of menace shortly before The Reveal that he's actually the good guy.
• The Thing (1982). Used as a Red Herring when Windows is receiving the blood test; he's shown staring at Mac in this fashion as if he's about to attack him, but as soon as the test proves negative Windows visibly relaxes.
• Used in The Third Man, making this trope Older Than They Think.
• Evil from Time Bandits does this a few times while apparently trying to cast a spell. He lifts his arms up and his face glows red, but he's interrupted before he can finish what he's doing. In the end, it turns him into a crumbling statue, and the Supreme Being appears to clean things up.
• Played for sexy by Lauren Bacall in To Have And Have Not, reportedly because Bacall was nervous about working with Bogey and was trying to keep from shaking. Considering that they later got married, that's adorable.
• In The Transporter, the villain manages to do this off camera. That is to say, he stares villainously into the camera for his driver's license photo. He ensured that every cop who pulled him over would realize he was evil. He also pulled it off several times on camera, but the driver's license deserves special mention.
• Another Kevin, Kevin Katchadourian from We Need to Talk About Kevin usually gives one of these before a Break Them by Talking.
• When Darkness Falls: Leyla's mother does this after Leyla realizes that her mother staged her sister's death, not her father which she thought first.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • Hugh Jackman in the films deliberately adopted a subtle version of this, but he came upon the idea independently. In an interview he said something about always trying to keep his head just slightly bowed, to imitate the way a wolf looks at you over its nose.
  • Magneto in his plastic prison in X2: X-Men United.
  • Logan: Like father, like daughter. Laura delivers a positively withering one to Pierce at Logan's hideout, when she walks towards him and tosses the head of one of his Reavers at his feet. The fact it's being delivered with aplomb by an eleven-year-old girl just makes it even more chilling.

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