A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Haunted by a persistent writer's block, the aspiring author and recovering alcoholic, Jack Torrance, drags his wife, Wendy, and his gifted son, Danny, up snow-capped Colorado's secluded Overlook Hotel after taking up a job as an off-season caretaker. As the cavernous hotel shuts down for the season, the manager gives Jack a grand tour, and the facility's chef, the ageing Mr Hallorann, has a fascinating chat with Danny about a rare psychic gift called "The Shining", making sure to warn him about the hotel's abandoned rooms, and, in particular, the off-limits Room 237. However, instead of overcoming the dismal creative rut, little by little, Jack starts losing his mind, trapped in an unforgiving environment of seemingly endless snowstorms, and a gargantuan silent prison riddled with strange occurrences and eerie visions. Now, the incessant voices inside Jack's head demand sacrifice. Is Jack capable of murder?Written by
Nick Riganas
The eerie "music for strings" section of the soundtrack was previously used in two Doctor Who (1963) serials in 1967. See more »
Goofs
As Jack is talking to Mr. Grady in the men's room, and Grady puts down the tray, it moves from between the second and third tap to between the third and fourth tap and back again several times during their conversation. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Jack Torrance:
Hi, I've got an appointment with Mr. Ullman. My name is Jack Torrance.
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Crazy Credits
The movie's opening titles are also the only instance in any Kubrick film where scrolling credits, rather than title cards, are used. See more »
Alternate Versions
"The Shining" initially opened on 10 screens in New York City and Los Angeles on Memorial Day weekend in 1980. Three days after the release of the film, Stanley Kubrick and Warner Bros. ordered all projectionists to cut about 2 minutes from the end of the film, and send the footage back to the studio. Starting after the closeup of frozen Jack, the camera goes to a pullback shot with part of a state trooper's car and the legs of troopers walking around in the foreground. We then cut to the hotel manager Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson) walking down a hospital hallway to the nurse's station to inquire her (Robin Pappas} about Danny and Wendy. He's told they're both doing well and proceeds to Wendy's room. After some gentle conversation, he tells Wendy that searchers have been unable to locate any evidence of the apparitions she saw. Additionally, Jack's body cannot be located. We then cut to the camera silently roaming the halls of the Overlook Hotel for about a minute until it comes up to the wall with the photographs, where it [back to the ending as it is now known] fades in on the photo of Jack in the 1921 picture. See more »
Kubrick, King and Nicholson, the writing was literally on the wall, and I don't mean RedRum, forty years on, and The Shining is still a masterpiece.
Kubrick takes King's fantastic book, and builds on it, bringing the story to life in his own inimitable way. It's dark, it's bleak, it's terrifying, a masterpiece in storytelling. You watch as the central character's mental collapse is played out in a spine chilling fashion.
Gorgeous camera work, incredible visuals, that opening is iconic. So many incredible, visual moments, the twins, lift, barman etc, no wonder it's been parodied multiple times over the years, famously by The Simpsons.
An iconic role for Jack Nicholson, he is incredible, well supported by a terrific cast.
It's a classic, 10/10.
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Kubrick, King and Nicholson, the writing was literally on the wall, and I don't mean RedRum, forty years on, and The Shining is still a masterpiece.
Kubrick takes King's fantastic book, and builds on it, bringing the story to life in his own inimitable way. It's dark, it's bleak, it's terrifying, a masterpiece in storytelling. You watch as the central character's mental collapse is played out in a spine chilling fashion.
Gorgeous camera work, incredible visuals, that opening is iconic. So many incredible, visual moments, the twins, lift, barman etc, no wonder it's been parodied multiple times over the years, famously by The Simpsons.
An iconic role for Jack Nicholson, he is incredible, well supported by a terrific cast.
It's a classic, 10/10.