Full Metal Jacket
1 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
What critics thought
Kubrick's Vietnam film earns strong approval overall, but with a notable fault line: the boot-camp first half — anchored by R. Lee Ermey's ferocious drill instructor — is widely treated as a near-masterpiece, while the second half set in Vietnam divides critics sharply, with detractors calling it shapeless and morally muddled and admirers defending its elliptical, deliberately desultory vision of war's pointlessness.
“harrowing, beautiful and characteristically eccentric”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“Elliptical, full of subtle inner rhymes ... and profoundly moving, this is the most tightly crafted Kubrick film since Dr. Strangelove, as well as the most horrific.”
Jonathan Rosenbaum·Chicago Reader
“intense, schematic, superbly made”
Todd McCarthy·Variety
Genres
Drama, War
Cast & Crew
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringMatthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Dorian Harewood
ComposerVivian Kubrick
Full Metal Jacket
1 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.
What critics thought
Kubrick's Vietnam film earns strong approval overall, but with a notable fault line: the boot-camp first half — anchored by R. Lee Ermey's ferocious drill instructor — is widely treated as a near-masterpiece, while the second half set in Vietnam divides critics sharply, with detractors calling it shapeless and morally muddled and admirers defending its elliptical, deliberately desultory vision of war's pointlessness.
“harrowing, beautiful and characteristically eccentric”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“Elliptical, full of subtle inner rhymes ... and profoundly moving, this is the most tightly crafted Kubrick film since Dr. Strangelove, as well as the most horrific.”
Jonathan Rosenbaum·Chicago Reader
“intense, schematic, superbly made”
Todd McCarthy·Variety
Genres
Drama, War
Cast & Crew
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringMatthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Dorian Harewood
ComposerVivian Kubrick
Rent/Purchase