Few films in the history of cinema have provoked as much discomfort — and as much genuine philosophical debate — as A Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubrick's 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess's dystopian novel arrives like a punch to the temple: stylized, brazen, and engineered to make you complicit in its protagonist's point of view before you've had a chance to object.

Alex DeLarge, played by Malcolm McDowell with an almost seductive ferocity, is not an antihero in the conventional sense. He's a rapist and murderer who narrates his own crimes with lyrical delight. And yet Kubrick frames him with such wit, such visual command, that discomfort becomes almost pleasurable — which is, of course, entirely the point.

On this episode of Movie of the Year, we engage with the three central tensions that make the film impossible to dismiss: the philosophical minefield of morality and free will, the sheer sensory experience of watching it, and the film's deeply troubled relationship with women and sexuality.