What is the name of the cult film starring Malcolm McDowell as Alex?

The cult film starring Malcolm McDowell as Alex is A Clockwork Orange.

Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange was released in 1971 and adapts Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel. McDowell plays Alex DeLarge, a charismatic but violent gang leader in a dystopian near-future Britain. Alex and his “droogs” commit crimes involving theft, assault, and what the film calls “ultra-violence.”

After Alex is imprisoned, the government subjects him to the Ludovico Technique, an experimental conditioning program intended to make violent behavior physically intolerable. The treatment raises the film’s central question: can a person be considered good if the ability to choose evil has been removed?

The film is known for its Nadsat slang, stylized production design, classical-music soundtrack, and provocative themes. It is often confused with If..., the earlier film that helped Kubrick notice McDowell, or Trainspotting, another celebrated British film about young men but not an adaptation of Burgess’s novel. A Clockwork Orange entered the U.S. National Film Registry in 2020.