The Killing

The Killing (1956)

The Killing is a fictional story of a meticulously planned racetrack robbery gone wrong, starring Sterling Hayden. This is Kubrick's first full-length feature film shot with a professional cast and crew. Its non-linear narrative had a major influence on later directors, including Quentin Tarantino.

The Killing followed many of the conventions of film noir in both plotting and cinematography, and although the genre peaked in the 1940s, many critics regard this film as one of its best examples.

Not a financial success, it still received good reviews and brought Kubrick and his producer partner James B. Harris to the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which offered them its collection of stories from which to choose their next project.

The film's fractured timeline — cutting between different characters' perspectives of the same robbery — was unusual for its era and remains cited in film schools as a landmark of structural storytelling. Roger Ebert described it as "a film of remarkable visual style and narrative ingenuity."