Lolita

Less genuinely ecstatic in its portrait of paedophiliac obsession than Nabokov's novel - Kubrick is too cold and distanced a director ever to portray happiness, it seems - but nevertheless far more satisfying than his later works (one hesitates to call them mere movies). Mason is highly impressive as Humbert Humbert - all repressed passion and furrowed brow - and Winters contributes just the right amount of vulgarity as Lo's mother. Kubrick manages to handle the moral and psychological nuances with surprising lucidity, but the decision to indulge Peter Sellers' gift for mimickry in the role of Quilty tends to scupper the movie's tone. Fascinating, nevertheless.