A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange (1971) — watch online on iFILM. Stanley Kubrick's landmark crime-fiction film, adapted from Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel, stars Malcolm McDowell as Alex DeLarge in one of cinema's most unsettling lead performances. British-American production; running time 137 minutes.

Alex leads a gang of four through the violent nights of a near-future England — beatings, break-ins, Beethoven on full blast. After his arrest, the government offers him a deal: undergo the Ludovico Technique, a conditioning programme designed to make violence physically unbearable. Alex takes it. What follows is less a story of rehabilitation and more a study of what happens when the state decides to own your instincts. McDowell holds every frame together with a grin that never quite reaches his eyes.

Kubrick shot the film in 1970, barely two years after 2001: A Space Odyssey, and again rewrote how genre films could work. Four Academy Award nominations followed, including Best Picture and Best Director. The film was voluntarily withdrawn from UK cinemas by Kubrick himself in 1973 and stayed off British screens for nearly three decades. Stream A Clockwork Orange (1971) online on iFILM.