It employs disturbing and violent themes to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain.

Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the central character, is a charismatic,[5] anti-social delinquent whose interests include classical music (especially that of Beethoven), committing rape, theft, and "ultra-violence".

He leads a small gang of thugs, Pete (Michael Tarn), Georgie (James Marcus), and Dim (Warren Clarke), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian word друг, which is "friend", "buddy").

After it was cited as having inspired copycat acts of violence, the film was withdrawn from British cinemas at Kubrick's behest, and it was also banned in several other countries.

Two years into the sentence, Alex accepts an offer to be a test subject for the Minister of the Interior's new Ludovico technique, an experimental aversion therapy for rehabilitating criminals within two weeks.

The film provided early roles for Steven Berkoff, David Prowse, and Carol Drinkwater, who appeared as a police officer, Mr Alexander's attendant Julian, and a nurse, respectively.

He fears the new government and, in a telephone conversation, he says: "Recruiting brutal young roughs into the police; proposing debilitating and will-sapping techniques of conditioning.

It is unclear whether he has been harmed; however, the Minister tells Alex that the writer has been denied the ability to write and produce "subversive" material that is critical of the incumbent government and meant to provoke political unrest.

"[11] Psychiatrist Aaron Stern, the former head of the MPAA rating board, believed that Alex represents man in his natural state, the unconscious mind.

[12] Kubrick told film critics Philip Strick and Penelope Houston: "Alex makes no attempt to deceive himself or the audience as to his total corruption or wickedness.

"[13] The society depicted in the film was perceived by some as communist (as Michel Ciment pointed out in an interview with Kubrick) due to its slight ties to Russian culture.

[35] The main theme is an electronic arrangement of a short excerpt from Henry Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, and the soundtrack has two of Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches.

The fast-motion sex scene with the two girls, the slow-motion fight between Alex and his Droogs, the fight with Billy Boy's gang, the drive to the writer's home ("playing 'hogs of the road'"), the invasion of the Cat Lady's home, and the scene in which Alex looks into the river and contemplates suicide before being approached by the beggar are all accompanied by Rossini's William Tell Overture or The Thieving Magpie Overture.

[22] Vincent Canby of The New York Times praised the film: "McDowell is splendid as tomorrow's child, but it is always Mr. Kubrick's picture, which is even technically more interesting than 2001.

Among other devices, Mr. Kubrick constantly uses what I assume to be a wide-angle lens to distort space relationships within scenes, so that the disconnection between lives, and between people and environment, becomes an actual, literal fact.

[42] In her New Yorker review titled "Stanley Strangelove", Pauline Kael called it pornographic because of how it dehumanised Alex's victims while highlighting the sufferings of the protagonist.

[43] In a retrospective review in his reference book Halliwell's Film and Video Guide, Leslie Halliwell described it as "a repulsive film in which intellectuals have found acres of social and political meaning; the average judgement is likely to remain that it is pretentious and nasty rubbish for sick minds who do not mind jazzed-up images and incoherent sound.

Concurring with some of Kael's criticisms about the depiction of Alex's victims, Simon noted that the character of Mr Alexander, who was young and likeable in the novel, was played by Patrick Magee, "a very quirky and middle-aged actor who specialises in being repellent".

Simon comments further that "Kubrick over-directs the basically excessive Magee until his eyes erupt like missiles from their silos and his face turns every shade of a Technicolor sunset".

For The Guardian, Philip French stated that the film's controversial reputation likely stemmed from the fact that it was released during a time when fear of teenage delinquency was high.

[46] Adam Nayman of The Ringer wrote that the film's themes of delinquency, corrupt power structures and dehumanisation are relevant in today's society.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Disturbing and thought-provoking, A Clockwork Orange is a cold, dystopian nightmare with a very dark sense of humor".

[55] Burgess reports in his autobiography You've Had Your Time (1990) that he and Kubrick at first enjoyed a good relationship, each holding similar philosophical and political views and each very interested in literature, cinema, music, and Napoleon Bonaparte.

In the script's stage directions it states that while this happens: "A man bearded like Stanley Kubrick comes on playing, in exquisite counterpoint, 'Singin' in the Rain' on the trumpet.

In March 1972, during the trial of a 14-year-old boy accused of the manslaughter of a classmate, the prosecutor referred to A Clockwork Orange, suggesting that the film had a macabre relevance to the case.

Roger Gray, for the defence, told the court that "the link between this crime and sensational literature, particularly A Clockwork Orange, is established beyond reasonable doubt".

Head censor Sheamus Smith explained his rejection to The Irish Times: "I believe that the use of those words in the context of advertising would be offensive and inappropriate.

[94] The film was brought up during the compilation of evidence on the rape and murder of Paulina Dembska, which took place on 2 January 2022 in Sliema, for the accused attacker compared himself to Alex during police interrogation.

Along with Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Wild Bunch (1969), Soldier Blue (1970), Dirty Harry (1971), and Straw Dogs (1971), the film is considered a landmark in the relaxation of control on violence in cinema.

[13] A Clockwork Orange was added to the United States' National Film Registry in 2020 as a work considered to be "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.