A crackling film noir.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 31, 2022

Stanley Kubrick is in full command of this tightly-paced, tense 84-minute crime thriller.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 25, 2022

[Kubrick's] new film bears evidence of a fresh and maturing talent and completely belies the impression given by his earlier efforts -- that of a college boy who, in a semester's turning, had gone from comic books to Oedipus Rex.

| Mar 28, 2022

The Killing may be a film that sometimes rings hollow. But technically, it stands apart from the rest. This is not the primary reason to be satisfied with it, yet, all things considered, its qualities are such that Kubrick's picture does not disappoint.

| Dec 7, 2021

Once one has commended the newsreel-style camerawork and Sterling Hayden, there is little left to do but wait, not too impatiently, for Kubrick's next feature, Paths of Glory.

| Sep 16, 2021

With intelligent characters, a singular plot, and a practically perfect ending, it's a brilliant early entry for one of cinema's most influential directors.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 23, 2020

The result is one of the year's freshest and most exciting crime dramas, establishing twenty-seven-year-old Stanley Kubrick as a writer-director of impressive talents.

| Dec 3, 2019

The Killing (1956) is a stylish but stark film noir crime drama, and the definitive heist-caper movie - a story of greed and infidelity. The classic, dark-edged black and white film was 28 year-old writer/director Stanley Kubrick's third film

| Original Score: A+ | Sep 29, 2019

The first genuinely great film by Stanley Kubrick...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 15, 2018

Unequivocally represents the genesis of Kubrick's insightful mindset. It is a living, breathing laboratory of precision and control.

| Aug 24, 2015

This taut crime picture was one of the earliest films in the career of Stanley Kubrick, but something of the director's voice and characteristic preoccupations are already evident here.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 5, 2015

One of the undisputed high-water marks of the American crime film whose reverberations can still be felt in a number of ways.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Mar 31, 2014

Underneath The Killing's clockwork violence is a pungent layer of irony, something Kubrick would further explore many times later in his career.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 14, 2013

Faultless and enjoyable.

| Jun 24, 2013

A brisk, satisfying film noir that features all the details of a racetrack heist gone wrong - even if the timeline is all shuffled out of order. It's thick with atmosphere and razor-sharp dialogue.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 27, 2011

Despite this only being his third feature and his first with a significant budget, Kubrick displays many of the thematic preoccupations and visual traits that would come to define his unique, cinematic voice.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 16, 2011

A tight heist thriller from master director Stanley Kubrick.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 15, 2011

Plotted with the kind of Swiss-watch precision and attention to detail that would eventually get Kubrick labeled Hollywood's most notorious perfectionist.

| Original Score: A | Aug 11, 2011

At 27 Writer-Director Stanley Kubrick, in his third full-length picture, has shown more audacity with dialogue and camera than Hollywood has seen since the obstreperous Orson Welles went riding out of town on an exhibitors' poll.

| Aug 3, 2011

May be the greatest of American heist films because it bursts the genre to the point of existentialism.

| Original Score: A+ | Oct 19, 2010