I liked both films but I think Full Metal is much stronger. I know both movies depict different aspects of war, but I think FMJ's message is much more powerful. Paths of Glory is all about greed and one's own reputation, while FMJ is all about the stripping of one's own humanity to the point where they become killing machines. Due to that, I personally believe FMJ is much darker and a stronger film. What's everyone else's opinion?
shareCertainly it would be Paths of Glory. As others have stated, the first part of FMJ was amazing, but it kind of fizzled out in the second half. Also, to be quite honest, FMJ came out a year after a better (IMO) Vietnam war movie, Platoon. Because Platoon was so good, FMJ overall seemed like a weaker film than it might otherwise have been, especially any of the Vietnam scenes.
share"Paths of Glory" is IMHO Kubrick's masterpiece.
let's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could
Paths of Glory easily
The first half of FMJ is phenomenal and some of Kubrick's best work but the second half is a mixed bag (tight direction and action but meh characters and writing).
Paths of Glory was Kubrick firing on all cylinders and from that fire forged one of the tightest, eminently watchable, and thematically beautiful films he has ever made. It's in a tie with A Clockwork Orange as my favorite from him.
Paths of Glory....hands down. Without taking anything away from FMJ, PoG lies in an altogether different league.
shareI love both, and think they're both perfect films for what they are, but "Paths of Glory" wins by a nose.
sharePaths. Easy
shareOFCOURSE PATHS OF GLORY!!!!
shareI see Paths of Glory, A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket as one triptych.
Kubrick belonged to this family of artists/thinkers who ruminate a small amount of themes but on a lot of situations and different levels.
Kubrick's two central themes are the human condition and the primordial pathos of life that is also Kubrick's first (uncanonical) feature film: Fear and Desire (already a war movie).
I could also include Dr Strangelove in this series of films as a variation on the theme of the essential absurdity of war and the absolute evil of the men of power.
Seeing Kubrick's oeuvre as a whole, I have no personal preference because I think they'd be irrelevant to the artistic and intellectual process and life that was Kubrick's. Each film opens to the next one, and each new film reuses and reassesses the themes explored in the previous ones.
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