The Shining’s Lost 29 Minutes Are Finally Coming Home — Criterion Drops the International Cut October 20

You’ve walked those hallways a hundred times. You know every typewriter page, every tricycle squeak, every drop of blood in that elevator. But you’ve never seen the version Stanley Kubrick cut for the rest of the planet. Not once. Until now.

THE NEWS, STRAIGHT UP: The Shining (1980) just clawed its way to #7 on HBO Max’s U.S. movie chart (per FlixPatrol, October 15) — and in five days, on October 20, the Criterion Collection unleashes The Complete Kubrick, a 30-disc 4K/Blu-ray box set with Kubrick’s 115-minute international cut — never before released on U.S. home video.

Turn off the lights, fiends — all work and no play makes this a very important unboxing.

Full disclosure, up front: Harper hasn’t laid eyes on the international cut — almost nobody stateside has. And honesty’s policy around here: Think Horror has never published a Shining review, so I won’t pretend otherwise. Consider this your field guide to the footage we’ve all been missing.

Here’s the box: The Complete Kubrick collects all 13 Kubrick features plus three early shorts across 30 discs, with 25+ hours of extras — including a new 4K restoration of Vivian Kubrick’s behind-the-scenes documentary Making The Shining. The headline for horror fiends: the 115-minute international cut. After The Shining opened on May 23, 1980, Kubrick himself trimmed 29 minutes for audiences outside the U.S. — and that shorter cut has never been released on American home video. Until October 20.

Watch the Trailer

Quick Specs

• The film: The Shining (1980), directed by Stanley Kubrick
• The box set: The Complete Kubrick — Criterion Collection, 30-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray
• Street date: October 20, 2026
• The peg: 115-minute international cut — first-ever U.S. home video release
• The math: 144-minute U.S. cut; Kubrick trimmed 29 minutes for international audiences after the May 23, 1980 premiere
• Extras: 25+ hours, including a new 4K restoration of Vivian Kubrick’s Making The Shining
• Streaming: #7 on HBO Max’s U.S. movie chart (FlixPatrol, October 15)

Harper’s Extras

• Want to argue about the scariest movie ever made? Science keeps crowning Sinister — read our rundown of its four-year reign.
• For more Stephen King on screen, our Carrie piece tracks Flanagan’s reimagining climbing to #1 on Prime Video.

The dare: watch the 115-minute cut back-to-back with the American version and tell me the Overlook doesn’t feel different. All work and no play… Keep it locked on Think Horror.