A Supercut of the Kubrick Stare, the Scariest Expression in the Movies

There are a lot of ways for an actor to make a scary face, but there might be none scarier than putting the head down, the eyes up, and staring directly into the camera. The look is called the “Kubrick Stare,” after its repeated use in the movies of Stanley Kubrick (especially A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket), but as chronicled in this supercut made especially for Slate, it’s not unique to the director.

Many other movies seem to have followed Kubrick’s lead: Silence of the Lambs and Donnie Darko do the stare perfectly, while Jack Nicholson has shown his mastery of it in not just The Shining but in Tim Burton’s Batman. In fact, with its repeated use by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, it seems to have become a signature of the Joker character—we’ll see soon whether this tradition is continued by Jared Leto.