What was Stanley Kramer's best film?

He made a lot of great films, but I'd have to say that It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World would be his masterpiece.

Inherit the Wind is pretty good, as is Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.

I haven't seen a Mad World, but for me his two best movies are 2001 and A Clockwork Orange...

But then again, all of his films are great!

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Mmmm.. Confused MovieFoprums Addict, Clockwork Orange & 2001 are directed by Stanley Kubrick. Were talking Stanley Kramer Producer/Director, some of his great works are:

Directing Favourites.

Guess Whos Coming To Dinner (1967)
Judgment At Nuremberg (1961)
InHerit The Wind (1960)
The Defiant Ones (1958)
On The Beach (1959)
The Men (1950)

Producing Favourites.

The Caine Mutiny (1954)
The Wild One (1954)
Cyrano De Bergeac (1950)

I think my favourite directorial effort is The Men with Brando & my favourite film Kramer produced is The Caine Mutiny with Bogart.

Excellent topic Rodney, truly a loss to the movie world.

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Oops I just realised my mistake!! I guess I just read the "Stanley" part and interpreted the rest as being what I wanted to hear!

"Errare humanum est"!

Anyone else a fan of this great man's work??

judgment at nuremberg

i never watch old movies of his but i know my dad did watch them

I think his directing style is somewhat ponderous.
I'll say On the Beach.

I just rewatched On The Beach last night. OMG that was such a hard hitting movie and yet the events seemed so personal and real. Great movie.

High Noon

I put Stanley Kramer as a mid'lin director, but I do love Judgement at Nuremberg and find that to be his best well rounded film. He's known for being a message director who digs into social commentary a lot, but I think some of his contemporaries such as Elia Kazan and Fred Zinnemann are more subtle in their approach with the main focus being on story and character whereas Kramer's films... the ones he directs, not necessarily produced, tend to have characters and stories attached to a message.

I recently, and I mean within the past couple years, watched Ship of Fools, which I had never seen or known of before and I enjoyed it. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and The Defiant Ones are two films where he tackles racism head on and they are both well done, but they don't really resonate with me as they come awfully close to crossing over the line with the preachiness to the point of being contrived and hackneyed like an after school special, but I think, from what I've seen, his best film is Judgement at Nuremberg as he takes on a fictionalized account of a real event and real history. Also Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland's scenes are absolutely great, despite being difficult to watch because of the subject matter.

It also has a great last scene and message - the one between Lancaster and Spencer Tracy. By the way I do love how both those actors play contrary to type and are full of subtleties and nuances in their performances. Perhaps that thing I admire most about Judgement at Nuremberg is that in examining the Nazi war crimes, it's also a study on how "good people" can either do complete acts of evil or turn their back and allow evil to persist. It's a theme that while embodied and encapsulated well in history and real life with the Nazi war crimes, is something that persists through so many other walks of life and events in how people can be so insanely cruel and evil to one another and hide behind, "We didn't know." There's a book called Ordinary Men which studies how the Nazis were able to recruit upstanding people in Germany with careers, families, no criminal records, who owned homes to commit complete acts of evil and murder.

This last scene is so good and so true. We often forget that if we treat one person with evil, we treat the entire world with evil.

One thing I will say about that last scene if you watch it, because as good as it is, from a directorial standpoint - when I say "heavy handed" notice how after Tracy says "It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent." the camera then cuts to Lancaster's face and then slowly zooms in with a low baritone and cymbals kicking in on the soundtrack to show his guilt and how he knows Spencer Tracy is right! It's as though we needed that instead of a good two shot or longer cut to know that Tracy's words of truth spoke daggers into him! Yeah we get it, Stanley. Stuff like that I just don't care for in his style and is what I mean by "heavy handed."

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I still need to watch that one.

Blind spot for me. I've only seen two: On the Beach and Ship of Fools. Both are very good, but I would probably swap those ratings now, or at least bump On the Beach a bit. It really stuck with me postively.

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It's funny, that the first time I watched On the Beach I thought it was only OK. I'm guessing I expected something different than the story the film was telling. However on the second watch I found it very moving. So much so that I've though alot about the end scenes, which makes me choke up just typing this...With that reaction in mind I need to rewatch Ship of Fools as I believe the film is much better than I had original thought on my first watch.

Stanley Kramer directed and produced alot of great films, I'd probably vote for Judgment at Nuremberg as his tops.

OOF

On the Beach is a tough watch. B very heavy movie, but definitely good.

My choice is High Noon, although he was the producer, not the director. It's my favorite Western and Gary Cooper movie.

I like most of his films but his masterpiece is definitely Judgement at Nuremberg