Half stoic war epic and half frustrating courtroom melodrama, this early Kubrick film proved unassumingly controversial upon its release in comparison with the auteur’s later works.

Banned at one time or another in France, Switzerland, Fascist Spain, and US Military bases, and mostly overshadowed by The Bridge on the River Kwai from the same year, Paths of Glory was not a big hit with audiences and was completely ignored by the Academy.

Over the subsequent decades, its critical reception and some recognition from international awards kept it in the cultural consciousness enough to earn glowing reappraisals, and to make it a frequent fixture on a lot of GOAT lists today.

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