Stanley Kubrick's Controversial Thriller That's 'Perfect' For The Holidays Is Streaming For Free

Christmas 2025 has arrived, and that means it's time for one long classic Christmas movie marathon. If you're looking to switch things up this year, however, there are plenty of overlooked and underrated Christmas comedies just waiting to be given a chance. Alternatively, you can push things even further with what might be the ultimate underrated Christmas comedy: "Eyes Wide Shut," now streaming for free on Tubi.

But wait, isn't Stanley Kubrick's final movie a psycho-drama full of erotic imagery and one of the most sinister secret society sequences ever put to film? Yes, it is. But it's also pretty funny and is a great alternative choice for your festive viewing schedule. Most of the humor comes from Tom Cruise's Dr. William Harford, whose entire life becomes momentarily deranged not because his wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman) has cheated on him, but because she once thought about doing it. After Cruise's doctor learns about this minor indiscretion, he wanders through a confected version of New York, built entirely on English sound stages at Kubrick's behest, in what is an undeniably funny odyssey that also manages to disturb in that unmistakably Kubrickian way.

"Eyes Wide Shut" also has a somewhat controversial legacy, in part due to the fact it was sold as one long sex scene between then-husband and wife Kidman and Cruise, and failed to deliver on that promise. But there's also the fact that production on the film took Kubrick's exhausting methods even further than "The Shining." Altogether, it makes for a fascinating watch no matter what time year you put it on. That said, the whole thing is set during the festive season, technically making it an overlooked Christmas movie, even if it also happens to be a movie about a cult that will keep you up at night.

When I say "Eyes Wide Shut" took Stanley Kubrick's exhausting methods to new heights, I mean the legendary director pushed things to beyond absurdity, sending teams to New York to measure the lengths between mailboxes and to note the exact dimensions of sidewalk surfaces. Because ever since he was forced to leave America for the United Kingdom to find funding for 1962's "Lolita" he'd essentially refused to leave.

That meant that while "Eyes Wide Shut" was set entirely in the Big Apple, it was shot almost entirely at Pinewood Studios in England, where Kubrick presided over the meticulous production with an even more fastidious eye than usual. The director shot the film from the fall of 1996 to January 1998, and is said to have put Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise through what sounds like a pretty rough time, including making the latter walk through a door 95 times for a single shot.

That darkly hilarious absurdity is at the root of "Eyes Wide Shut," then, and permeates the film, lending it a similarly ridiculous energy. That's not to say it's not also disturbing and surreal and all the things you'd expect from a Kubrick movie. But it's also just undeniably funny, and when you learn the director initially wanted to make it as a comedy with Steve Martin in the lead, it starts to make more sense. 

All of which is to say that you shouldn't be put off streaming "Eyes Wide Shut" this Christmas if you're expecting an unrelentingly bleak and upsetting slog. It's a fascinating, multi-layered movie that also happens to be set at Christmas. Far from being incidental to the film, however, the festive setting provides so much to the final experience.

As with every Stanley Kubrick movie, critics and intellectuals have debated aspects of "Eyes Wide Shut" and their meaning since it debuted. The Christmas setting is just one example, but it is a particularly interesting one. For one thing, the director made an intentional choice to set the movie during the holiday season. "Eyes Wide Shut" is actually based on Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella "Dream Story" which was set in early 20-century Vienna, with Kubrick transposing the story to 1990s New York City. But while the Christmas setting was seemingly his attempt to mirror the Mardi Gras element of the original novella, it also seemed significant in other ways.

For example, the film is full of Christmas lights, which when contrasted against the frequently debauched and disturbing imagery in certain scenes take on a darkly humorous aspect. They become sort of ridiculous representations of simplistic cheer juxtaposed against the complexity of actual human affairs and all the flaws revealed therein. That's sort of the vibe throughout, with the festive season representing a kind of ideal we've all failed to live up to. Again, it's sort of funny but in a dark, Kubrickian way.

So, if you fancy something a little different from the standard Christmas fare this year, you can't do much better than "Eyes Wide Shut." Sure, it might sound a little bleak, but if there's room for a bloody remake like "Silent Night, Deadly Night" why can't there be room for a more subtle subversion of Christmas — especially if it's as interesting and thought-provoking as Kubrick's final movie? "Eyes Wide Shut" is now streaming for free over on Tubi.