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Yes—Eyes Wide Shut is set at Christmastime, and its holiday lights and rituals shape the film’s unsettling atmosphere. But Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film is not a conventional Christmas story: it is a marital and psychological drama about desire, jealousy, status and uncertainty, unfolding as a dreamlike journey through New York at the turn of the millennium.
What is Eyes Wide Shut about?
Tom Cruise plays Dr. Bill Harford, a New York physician whose confidence in his marriage is shaken when his wife, Alice, played by Nicole Kidman, confesses to intense fantasies about another man. Bill then wanders through the city at night, drawn toward a hidden sexual world that tests his assumptions about marriage, identity and power.
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![Eyes Wide Shut: Special Edition (BD) [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51O3J2asITL._SL160_.jpg)
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Eyes Wide Shut: Special Edition (BD) [Blu-ray] | $11.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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![Eyes Wide Shut (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41TmaqlJCsL._SL160_.jpg)
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Eyes Wide Shut (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] | $32.28 | Buy on Amazon |
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![Eyes Wide Shut [Wb Collection] [amazondvd Collection] [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51A0jxvpRXL._SL160_.jpg)
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Eyes Wide Shut [Wb Collection] [amazondvd Collection] [Blu-ray] | $21.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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![Eyes Wide Shut [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Xk68jV5QL._SL160_.jpg)
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Eyes Wide Shut [Blu-ray] | $28.84 | Buy on Amazon |
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Eyes Wide Shut | Buy on Amazon |
The film was directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick, who co-wrote the screenplay with Frederic Raphael. It adapts Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Traumnovelle, known in English as Dream Story, moving its early twentieth-century Vienna setting to late twentieth-century New York. The Criterion Collection describes the result as a “Christmastime odyssey” (Criterion Collection).
Why is Eyes Wide Shut set at Christmas?
Christmas is more than seasonal decoration. The film repeatedly places its characters among festive lights and holiday rituals, creating a bright, familiar surface against which Bill’s uneasy nocturnal encounters feel increasingly strange. The contrast makes the city seem both inviting and unreal, as if ordinary life and private fantasy occupy the same streets.
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#1 Best Overall
- Eyes Wide Shut - Blu-ray Brand New
The holiday setting also sharpens the film’s domestic frame. Parties, family life and the rituals of the season surround a story about what spouses reveal—and conceal—from each other. The result is less a celebration of Christmas than a study of how desire and suspicion can unsettle familiar routines.
Erotic thriller or relationship drama?
The film’s pre-release campaign emphasized an erotic-thriller frame, but the finished work is more intimate and confounding. The British Film Institute describes it as a complex film that resists easy answers, with Alice’s confession setting off Bill’s dreamlike odyssey rather than a straightforward suspense plot (British Film Institute).
Rank #2
That difference matters when approaching the film. Its masked gathering and hidden sexual underworld may invite questions about power and secrecy, but the story remains closely tied to Bill’s perspective and his reaction to Alice’s independence. The film does not provide a single authoritative key to its masks, ritual or ending; those ambiguities are part of its design, not a puzzle with one confirmed solution.
How was the film received and reassessed?
Eyes Wide Shut had a divisive reception, and later writing has treated it with greater appreciation. It is misleading to describe it simply as a critical flop or to present it as an undisputed consensus masterpiece. The BFI’s 2019 retrospective reports that the film ultimately grossed over $162 million worldwide, a figure cited in that retrospective rather than a current box-office update.
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Katharina Kubrick, an artist and Stanley Kubrick’s daughter, recalled in a 2019 interview that her father was proud of the film: “In the end he was very proud of it. He said he thought it was his greatest film.” This is her recollection of his view, not a direct statement by Stanley Kubrick (Sight and Sound / BFI).
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Which home edition should you choose?
Criterion lists both a 4K UHD plus Blu-ray edition and a Blu-ray option. The current special edition includes a new 4K digital restoration supervised and approved by cinematographer Larry Smith, Dolby Vision HDR presentation, two Blu-rays, interviews and archival supplements, and an essay by Megan Abbott (Criterion Collection). Check the listing for current price and availability, which can change.
Rank #4
| What to compare | 4K UHD + Blu-ray | Blu-ray |
|---|---|---|
| Presentation | New 4K restoration and Dolby Vision HDR, as listed by Criterion. | Criterion lists a Blu-ray option; the cited listing does not establish that it has the same 4K HDR presentation. |
| Player compatibility | Requires a 4K UHD Blu-ray player for the UHD disc; the package also includes Blu-rays. | Requires a Blu-ray player. |
| Supplements | Criterion’s special-edition listing names interviews, archival supplements and an essay by Megan Abbott. | Supplement details are not stated here; check Criterion’s listing for the specific Blu-ray option. |
| Price and availability | Check Criterion’s current listing. | Check Criterion’s current listing. |
The UHD option is the relevant choice if you have a compatible player and want the listed 4K restoration and HDR presentation. If you only play standard Blu-rays, compare the listed features and current price of the Blu-ray option instead; neither format is universally best for every viewer.
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Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
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