Stanley Kubrick, who died on 7 March, 1999, was responsible for some of the most important and influential films of the 20th century.

Though his output, particular in the later years of his career, was sporadic, his films marked landmarks in cinema history, from the epic Spartacus (1960), the pioneering 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the controversial A Clockwork Orange (1971) to the shocking Full Metal Jacket (1987).

Always inventive and original, his movies inspired generations of film-makers and he skirted the border between popularity and artistry with extraordinary consistency.

Stanley Kubrick was born on 26 July, 1928, in Manhattan. He was the first child of Jewish-Austrian parents Jacques and Gertrude Kubrick and grew up in the Bronx area of Manhatten.

In his early teens he developed interests in jazz, chess and photography. Despite being chosen as the official school photographer for a year, his high school performance was disappointing and he failed to get into college in 1945, partly because of returning soldiers filling the books.

At 17 he got a job as a photographer with Look magazine, work which took him around America. This fuelled his enthusiasm for learning and he enrolled in night school. Around this time he was married to Toda Metz for three years and lived in New York but the couple split.

After his divorce he developed an interest in cinema, attending screenings at the Museum of Modern Art and local cinemas and was particularly influenced by German director Max Ophuls.

His first films were short cinema newsreel documentaries for RKO and he soon began making enough money to quit his job at Look. His first feature film, a low-budget war drama called Fear and Desire, was finished in 1953. Though it shows early Kubrick stylings, the director later felt embarrassed by the film and attempted to erase it from his catalogue.

After making another low-budget flick, Killer's Kiss (1954), Kubrick met producer James B Harris who helped him make his first three professional films. The Killing (1956), his first critically acclaimed film, brought him to the attention of MGM with whom he made Paths of Glory (1957) starring Kirk Douglas as a French soldier in the First World War.

After an uneasy relationship with Marlon Brando forced him to leave the helm of western One-Eyed Jacks (1961), he was asked by Kirk Douglas to take over the direction of his ambitious Spartacus project. Though the ground-breaking, big-budget film was a huge hit, Kubrick again found it difficult to work with the leading man and it wouldn’t be until 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut that he would again cast A-list Hollywood stars.

Seeking ways to escape the restraints of Hollywood, he filmed Lolita (1962) in England where he would live for the rest of his life. With its theme of underage sex, Lolita would be the first of Kubrick’s films to suffer from the censor’s scissors with huge re-edits. His adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange, several years later, proved too violent for audiences and Kubrick banned the film himself.

His strangest films – in fact, two of the strangest films in movie history – were Dr. Strangelove (1964), which starred Peter Sellers as four different characters in an apocalyptic comedy ("You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" among its biting satirical lines) and 2001: A Space Odyssey, a surreal sci-fi adventure that won an Oscar for its revolutionary visual effects.

In 1980 he added another cinema classic to his portfolio by becoming one of the second of many directors to bring Stephen King to the big screen (the first being Brian De Palma who adapted Carrie in 1976) with The Shining starring Jack Nicholson.

In 1987 he returned to where he’d started, with a war drama, tackling the experience of Vietnam soldiers in Full Metal Jacket. Tense and sardonic, the film is regarded as one of the best war films ever made.

It was then over a decade before he made his next film, Eyes Wide Shut, a sexually-charged psychological drama starring then real-life couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Always discerning and meticulous, Kubrick was remarkable – possibly unique – in that he never made a stinker. Every one of his 11 professional feature films is held in lofty regard by most critics, even 1975’s historical drama Barry Lyndon which flopped at the cinema but is heralded for its use of light and music.

It’s arguable that the only blot on his record was A I: Artificial Intelligence, the un-commenced project that Steven Spielberg took over after his death. Spielberg has come to shoulder the blame for what is a largely confusing and unfulfilling film, while the Kubrickian elements have been praised. Among his other unrealised projects was an epic biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The only mystery to many of his fans is why one of the greatest directors of all time was never given a Best Director Oscar, though he was nominated for the title four times.

He was married a total of three times, the second to set designer Ruth Sobotka between 1955 and 1957, and the third to German-born painter Christiane Susanne Harlan in 1958. They stayed married until his death and raised their two daughters and Christiane’s daughter from her previous relationship.

Stanley Kubrick died from a heart attack a few days after completing Eyes Wide Shut at the age of 70.