Director Steven Spielberg described him as an "incredibly talented visionary" and "one of four great filmmakers, not just for the art and passion he put on screen, but for the impact he has made on the conscience of the world."

His friend Kevin Spacey, during his acceptance speech at the 2015 Golden Globes, honored Kramer's work, calling him "one of the great filmmakers of all time.

Those years as an apprentice writer and editor helped him acquire an "exceptional aptitude" in editing and develop the ability to understand the overall structure of the films he worked on.

[11] He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 during World War II, where he helped make training films with the Signal Corps in New York, along with other Hollywood filmmakers including Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak.

He partnered with writer Herbie Baker, publicist George Glass and producer Carl Foreman, an army friend from the film unit.

Foreman justified the production company by noting that the big studios had become "dinosaurs," which, being shocked by the onrush of television, "jettisoned virtually everything to survive."

According to Byman, "there were no fewer than ninety-six" other companies in competition during that period, and included some of Hollywood's biggest names: Frank Capra, John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey, and George Stevens.

[4]The first movie produced under his production company was the comedy So This Is New York (1948), directed by Richard Fleischer, and based on Ring Lardner's The Big Town.

The story was adapted from a play by Arthur Laurents, originally about anti-Semitism in the army, but revised and made into a film about the persecution of a black soldier.

"[4] His renamed Stanley Kramer Company produced The Men (1950), which featured Marlon Brando's screen debut, in a drama about paraplegic war veterans.

[4]Also released in 1950 was Kramer's production of Cyrano de Bergerac, the first English language film version of Edmond Rostand's 1897 French play.

In 1951, Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn offered Kramer's company an opportunity to form a production unit working with his studio.

[14] Kramer continued producing movies at Columbia, including Death of a Salesman (1951), The Sniper (1952), The Member of the Wedding (1952), The Juggler (1953), The Wild One (1953) and The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953).

"[12] Among some of those controversial films were Not as a Stranger (1955), The Pride and the Passion (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958), On the Beach (1959), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).

His first film as director was Not as a Stranger (1955), the story of medical students and their career, some of whom lose their idealism and succumb to blind ambition, adultery, and immoral behavior.

It portrays in detail how a dedicated group of Spanish guerrillas dragged a gigantic cannon across half the country in an effort to defeat Napoleon's advancing army.

The following year, Kramer directed The Defiant Ones (1958), the story of two escaped convicts in the Deep South, one black, played by Sidney Poitier, and one white, Tony Curtis.

Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel Prizes (Chemistry and Peace), commented: It may be that some years from now we can look back and say that On the Beach is the movie that saved the world.

[11] Critics Arthur Knight and Hollis Alpert likewise praised the film and admired Kramer for showing "courage in attempting such a theme.

The film, an adaptation of the play of the same name, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, was a fictionalized account of the 1925 Scopes Trial, which concerned a violation of Tennessee's Butler Act.

It starred Spencer Tracy, portraying the real Clarence Darrow, defending the teacher, and Fredric March as his rival attorney, William Jennings Bryan, who insisted that creationism was the only valid subject that should be taught to children.

Critic Hollis Alpert wrote in his review: Stanley Kramer has once again used film importantly and continues to emerge as the only truly responsible moviemaker in Hollywood.

"[8]: 257  According to one writer, he directed it "to prove he could also handle comedy" and hired many of the leading comedic actors of the previous decades, from silent star Buster Keaton to emerging talent Jonathan Winters.

[10] Film critic Dwight Macdonald writes that its "small army of actors—105 speaking roles—inflict mayhem on each other with cars, planes, explosives and other devices...is simply too much for the human eye and ear to respond to, let alone the funny bone," calling it "hard-core slapstick.

"[8]: 268 For his fourth film about the sensitive subject of racism, he both directed and produced Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), a groundbreaking story about interracial marriage.

The effort proved a dispiriting embarrassment for him with college students largely dismissing his film and preferring to discuss less conventional fare like Bonnie and Clyde directed by Arthur Penn.

[23] At the time of his retirement, he was attempting to bring a script titled Three Solitary Drinkers to the screen, a film about a trio of alcoholics that he hoped would be played by Sidney Poitier, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau.

Some, like Pauline Kael, were often critical of his subject matter for being "melodramas," and "irritatingly self-righteous," but she credits his films for their "redeeming social importance...[with] situations and settings nevertheless excitingly modern, relevant.

"[4]: 44  Kramer, however, saw himself as "a storyteller with a point of view": Maybe I'm out of step with the times, because a lot of movies are made today with no statement at all, just shock and sensation, or a motivationless kind of approach to a story, a senseless crime, a pointless love affair...Like lots of kids in the 1930s, I wanted to right all the wrongs of mankind...I'm not interested in changing anyone's opinion, just in telling a story.

[36] The Producers Guild of America established the Stanley Kramer Award in 2002 to honor a production or individuals whose contribution illuminates and raises public awareness of important social issues.