Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut Holds A 400-Day Filming Record That Hollywood Still Won’t Touch

Stanley Kubrick spent 400 days filming Eyes Wide Shut, setting a wild Hollywood record with his attention to detail.

By
Arunava Chakrabarty
- April 20, 2025 | 12:38 PM IST
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Stanley Kubrick didn’t just leave a mark on cinema but he carved out a legacy so precise and so relentless, that even his final film became a test of endurance no one’s been eager to repeat.

The movie, Eyes Wide Shut, wrapped in mystery and drenched in dreamlike paranoia, was the last note in his symphony of cinematic obsession. Not content with redefining science fiction, horror, and historical epics, Kubrick closed the curtain with a record so absurd it’s practically a dare – the longest continuous film shoot in Hollywood history. 400 days. Yes, you read that right. That’s not a typo. Four. Hundred.

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A Dream Decades In The Making

While most films are wrapped up in a neat three to four months, Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut turned into a year-plus odyssey. The film that began as a six-month plan spiraled into a 15-month saga of endless takes and minute details.

Tom Cruise walking through a door 95 times wasn’t some weird actor ritual. It was Kubrick being Kubrick, demanding perfection with each footstep, each frame. It wasn’t just about directing a film but orchestrating a symphony of control.

Long before a single scene was shot, Kubrick had already been obsessed with the source material, a 1926 novella called Traumnovelle. He’d toyed with the idea since the ’60s, but the real machinery didn’t start turning until the ’90s. By the time cameras rolled, the journey had already been decades in the making. Then came the chaos. Harvey Keitel walked off set, roles were recast or erased, and the energy on set buzzed with tension. But all of it fed into Kubrick’s vision.

Stanley Kubrick’s Perfection Frame By Frame

Kubrick’s obsession had no bounds, agonizing over every mask in the movie’s orgy scene, and crafting a world where not a single frame escaped his microscope. Whether or not Eyes Wide Shut truly was his magnum opus is up for eternal debate. Some say it was 2001, others point to the gleaming axe of The Shining, but Kubrick himself believed this final chapter was his ultimate contribution.

He never lived to see its release as just six days after delivering the final cut, he was gone.

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