Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket (1987) — watch online Stanley Kubrick's war drama adapted from Gustav Hasford's novel The Short-Timers. Produced by Stanley Kubrick Productions and Warner Bros., the film was shot entirely in England — Kubrick rebuilt Vietnamese streets on derelict industrial land east of London. Runtime: 116 minutes.

The film splits cleanly into two halves. The first is Parris Island: Gunnery Sergeant Hartman — played not by a professional actor but by R. Lee Ermey, an actual Marine Corps drill instructor — dismantles each recruit's identity piece by piece. Private Pyle, played by Vincent D'Onofrio who gained 70 pounds for the role, undergoes a collapse that the camera watches without flinching. The second half drops into Hue City during the 1968 Tet Offensive, where military journalist Joker (Matthew Modine) moves through rubble and tries to keep a press badge between himself and what the war is turning him into.

Kubrick keeps cinematographer Douglas Milsome's lens on faces, not tactics — which is exactly why the film still cuts. Stream Full Metal Jacket (1987) online on iFILM.