Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 erotic psychological mystery thriller film directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, and starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The plot centers on a Manhattan doctor who is shocked when his wife reveals that she contemplated cheating on him. He embarks on a night-long adventure and infiltrates a masked orgy held by a secret society. It is based on the 1926 novella Dream Story () by Arthur Schnitzler, and transfers the story's setting from early twentieth-century Vienna to 1990s New York City.
Kubrick obtained the filming rights for Dream Story in the 1960s, considering it a perfect text for a film adaptation about sexual relations. He revived the project in the 1990s when he hired writer Frederic Raphael to help him with the adaptation. An international co-production between the United Kingdom and United States, principal photography of Eyes Wide Shut began in late 1996 in England, with a detailed recreation of exterior Greenwich Village street scenes built at Pinewood Studios. The film's production, at 400 days, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous film shoot.
Following an extensive post-production process that began in early 1998, Kubrick submitted his final cut of the film to Warner Bros. on March 1, 1999, which was viewed by Cruise, Kidman, and studio executives. Kubrick died of a heart attack six days later. Some post-production was resumed the week after Kubrick's death, which led to some public debate over the film's state of completion. Warner Bros. began an extensive marketing campaign to promote the film in early 1999, though its publicity materials were vague in nature and marketed the film as an erotic thriller.
Eyes Wide Shut had its world premiere in Los Angeles on July 13, 1999, before being released in the United States on July 16 and in the United Kingdom on September 10. It received generally positive reviews from critics, and was nominated for numerous awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. The film was met with significant critical notice in France, receiving a César Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, as well as winning the award in the same category from the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. It was also named the best film of the year by Cahiers du Cinéma in their annual top ten list. The film was a box-office success, earning $162million worldwide, making it Kubrick's highest-grossing film in unadjusted dollars.
Plot Dr. Bill Harford and his wife Alice live in New York City with their daughter, Helena. At a Christmas party hosted by Bill's patient, Victor Ziegler, Bill reconnects with his former medical school classmate, Nick Nightingale, now a professional pianist. Meanwhile, an older Hungarian guest attempts to seduce Alice, while two young models try to seduce Bill. Victor interrupts Bill's flirtation to handle an emergency involving Mandy, a young woman who overdosed during sex with him. Bill helps stabilize Mandy.
The following night, Bill and Alice smoke marijuana and discuss their unfulfilled desires. Bill dismisses the idea that Alice could be unfaithful, believing women to be naturally loyal. However, Alice shocks him by confessing to fantasizing about a naval officer she observed while on vacation, even considering leaving Bill and Helena for him. Disturbed, Bill is called to a patient's home, where the patient's daughter, Marion, confesses her love and tries to seduce him. Bill resists and leaves.
Wandering the city, Bill meets a prostitute named Domino. Before anything happens, Alice calls, prompting Bill to leave after paying Domino without proceeding further. Later, Bill encounters Nick at a jazz club. Nick tells Bill about a secretive late-night gig at a mansion, where he will play piano blindfolded, suggests beautiful women will be present and reveals the password to gain entry. Intrigued, Bill visits a costume store, formerly owned by one of his patients but now run by Mr. Milich, to rent an outfit. During the visit, Milich discovers his teenage daughter with two older men and locks the men in a room, threatening to call the police.
Bill arrives at the mansion, provides the password, and witnesses a bizarre sexual ritual and various orgies throughout the party. A masked woman warns him that he is in danger. He is taken to a gathering where the master of ceremonies demands a second password. Bill claims to have forgotten the second password, and the master of ceremonies exposes him as an outsider. Before the master of ceremonies forces Bill to remove his clothes, the masked woman intervenes, offering herself to save him. Bill is let go with a stern warning to remain silent.
Shaken, Bill returns home to find Alice laughing in her sleep. She tearfully recounts a dream of having sex with the naval officer and many other men while mocking Bill. The next day, Bill visits Nick's hotel, but the clerk claims Nick was taken away by two threatening men. Returning the costume, Bill notices the mask is missing and learns that Milich actually profits from prostituting his daughter, now offering her services to Bill.
Consumed by jealousy and doubt, Bill revisits the mansion but receives an envelope warning him to stay away. That evening, he tries calling Marion but hangs up when her fiancé answers. He then visits Domino's apartment but finds only her roommate, Sally, who informs him that Domino has tested HIV-positive.
As Bill leaves, a mysterious figure follows him. After reading about Mandy's death from an overdose, he visits the morgue and identifies her body as the masked woman from the orgy. Victor summons Bill and admits to being at the orgy. He explains that there was no second password and that Bill's exposure was deliberate. Victor insists the secret society behind the orgies only seeks to intimidate him into silence but warns they are dangerous. He claims Nick has returned safely to Seattle and attributes Mandy's death to her drug addiction, dismissing foul play.
Returning home, Bill finds the missing mask placed on his pillow. Breaking down in tears, he confesses everything to Alice. The next day, the couple takes Helena shopping for Christmas. Bill apologizes to Alice, and she suggests they take action to repair their relationship. When he asks what she means, Alice responds with a single word: "Fuck".
Cast
Production Development Eyes Wide Shut was developed after Stanley Kubrick read Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story in 1968, when Kubrick was looking for a project to follow 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick was interested in adapting the story, and with the help of journalist Jay Cocks, bought the filming rights to the novel. For the following decade, Kubrick considered making the Dream Story adaptation a sex comedy "with a wild and somber streak running through it", starring Steve Martin or Woody Allen in the main role. Kubrick also considered Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Albert Brooks, Alan Alda, and Sam Shepard for the lead in the 1980s. The project was revived in 1994 when Kubrick hired Frederic Raphael to work on the script, updating the setting from early 20th-century Vienna to late 20th-century New York City. Kubrick invited his friend Michael Herr, who helped write Full Metal Jacket, to make revisions, but Herr declined for fear he would be underpaid and have to commit to a long production.
Adaptation
Kubrick adapted Eyes Wide Shut with co-writer Frederic Raphael from Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Dream Story, which centers on a doctor, Fridolin, and his wife, Albertina, in Vienna. The novella is set during the Carnival, when people often wear masks to parties. The party that both husband and wife attend at the opening of the story is a Carnival masquerade ball, whereas the film's story begins at Christmas time.
For the film, Kubrick transposed the events to 1990s Greenwich Village in New York City, instead featuring an American doctor, Bill, and his wife, Alice. In an introduction to a Penguin Classics edition of Dream Story, Raphael wrote that, "Fridolin is not declared to be a Jew, but his feelings of cowardice, for failing to challenge his aggressor, echo the uneasiness of Austrian Jews in the face of Gentile provocation." Kubrick, who frequently removed references to Jewishness of characters in the novels he adapted, felt that the character of Bill should be a "Harrison Ford-ish goy" and created the surname of Harford as an allusion to the actor.
In the novella, the party (which is sparsely attended) requires "Denmark" as the password for entrance, paralleling Albertina's admitted infatuation with a Danish soldier, which she confides in Fridolin. In the film, the password used for the party entrance is "Fidelio." Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum notes that both passwords echo elements of one member of the couple's behavior, though in opposite ways. In the novella, the woman who "redeems" Fridolin at the party, saving him from punishment for his infiltration of the event, is costumed as a nun, and most of the characters at the party are dressed as nuns or monks; Fridolin himself used a monk costume. This aspect was retained in the film's original screenplay, but was omitted in the filmed version.
The novella makes it clear that Fridolin at this point hates Albertina more than ever, thinking they are now lying together "like mortal enemies". It has been argued that the dramatic climax of the novella is actually Albertina's dream, and the film has shifted the focus to Bill's visit to the secret society's orgy, whose content is more shocking in the film.
The adaptation created a character with no counterpart in the novella: Ziegler, who represents both the elevated wealth and prestige to which Bill Harford aspires, and a connection between Bill's two worlds (his regular life, and the secret society organizing the ball). Critic Randy Rasmussen interprets Ziegler as representing Bill's worst self, much as in other Kubrick films; the title character in Dr. Strangelove represents the worst of the American national security establishment, Charles Grady represents the worst of Jack Torrance in The Shining, and Clare Quilty represents the worst of Humbert Humbert in Lolita.
More significantly, in the film, Ziegler gives a commentary on the whole story to Bill, including an explanation that the party incident, where Bill is apprehended, threatened, and ultimately redeemed by the woman's sacrifice, was staged. Whether this is to be believed or not, it is an exposition of Ziegler's view of the ways of the world as a member of the powerful elite.
Casting
When Warner Bros. president Terry Semel approved production in 1995, he asked Kubrick to cast a movie star as "you haven't done that since Jack Nicholson [in The Shining]". Kubrick intended to cast a real married couple in the film as Bill and Alice Harford. Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger were considered, as were Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. Kubrick eventually cast Tom Cruise in the role of Bill, having been impressed by his performance in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), and Nicole Kidman as Alice. Kidman had been in England filming The Portrait of a Lady (1996), and she and Cruise eventually decided to visit Kubrick at his estate in Childwickbury to discuss the project. After that meeting, Kubrick awarded them the roles. The couple's casting was officially announced by Variety on December 17, 1995. Kubrick also managed to make both not commit to other projects until Eyes Wide Shut was completed.
In a 2025 interview, John Turturro claimed Kubrick wrote the role of Nick Nightingale for him, but that Turturro accidentally turned it down due to a misunderstanding. Ultimately, Kubrick offered the role to Todd Field whose performance he had admired in Victor Nuñez’s Ruby in Paradise. https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/victor-nunez-director-ruby-in-paradise-interview-1234879268/