Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master List
Spoiler-free premise
Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny.
Read expanded premiseLonger, still spoiler-free+
Writer Jack Torrance becomes winter caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel and moves there with Wendy and their son Danny. As snow cuts off the property, Danny's psychic visions and the hotel's past begin pressing against the family's fragile stability.
Why it belongs
Stanley Kubrick makes the Overlook Hotel a maze of symmetry, impossible space, sound, and repetition where family pressure becomes cosmic dread.
Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case+
Kubrick designs the Overlook as impossible mental architecture through Steadicam movement, symmetrical corridors, patterned carpets, dissonant music, and abrupt temporal gaps, while the family's performances make supernatural dread inseparable from domestic terror.
Major award wins
No verified wins in this six-institution crosswalk.
Awards are reference metadata only · zero points in 40/40/20
Good for
Film Club
Descriptive guidance derived from rating, genre, runtime, mood, and GCML scores.
Institutional reference ranks
Sight & Sound88IMDb Top 25068AFI 100—
Reference metadata only · not part of the 40/40/20 score
Great Cinema Master List scores
Greatness9.4
Engagement9.5
Ease8.4
English · R Narrative Feature Mood: Terrifying & Gripping
