Kubrick's brother-in-law and longtime producer, Jan Harlan, called such claims ludicrous. He said Kubrick loved sports cars, for example, and was known to answer the door politely when a fan would sneak onto his property.

"He would just say, 'Stanley is not at home,"' Harlan recalled with a laugh. Since there were few public photos of Kubrick, the fan invariably believed him.

Sharing their stories, the family said, might show the filmmaker's softer side and cause fans to view his movies in a slightly different way.

The feature-length documentary, directed by Harlan, includes home movies (Kubrick as a child, performing a silly dance with his sister; as a father, pestering his daughter about her piano lesson.)

Even in his childhood photos, Kubrick had dark, tired bags beneath his eyes.

Performers such as Malcolm McDowell (star of Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange") and Jack Nicholson ("The Shining") joined Christiane Kubrick in offering insights into the director.

The movie focuses on Kubrick's career, from his early days as a photographer for Look magazine to the later projects he never completed, such as "A.I.," the sci-fi story that Steven Spielberg took over and opens later this month.

There is no mention of Kubrick's first two marriages, to Toba Metz and Ruth Sobotka, and few details about his relationship with his parents.

He is shown with daughters Anya, Vivian and Katharine (Christiane's daughter from a previous marriage) being playful, sweet and occasionally bossy.

"I think I'm one of the most even-tempered people you'll ever meet," he says to 10-year-old Anya while shooting a home movie.

"Ha!" she responds.

"I wanted to make a movie that he would approve," Harlan said. "He was very private, but I think if we were to meet in the afterlife, I could still face him."

Harlan offers glimpses of Kubrick's everyday life, revealing him to be an affable, curious character who enjoyed chess and loved animals but had a furious temper.

"I'm not saying Stanley was a saint, because he wasn't," Harlan said.

Lies enraged him. If an actor or crew member said they were ready to shoot and they weren't, Kubrick would explode because the entire day's schedule would be thrown off track.

"Sometimes people worried and would not give him negative news, which was the worst thing you could do. For him it was better to know," said Leon Vitali, Kubrick's personal assistant since his small role in 1975's "Barry Lyndon."

Overall, Vitali said, the director's temper was exaggerated. But his relationships with McDowell, Shelley Duvall of "The Shining" and Ryan O'Neal of "Barry Lyndon" soured, in part, because of his stubborn anger.

Kubrick's family said those were exceptions. "He was quick to anger, but also quick to peace," Harlan said.

Kubrick was a native New Yorker who lived the last four decades of his life in rural Hertfordshire, England. Contrary to speculation, his widow said, he was "the opposite of a recluse."

He spent hours on the phone with directors like Spielberg or former Warner Bros. co-chairman Terry Semel, chatting about the latest technology or hashing over story ideas.

"He used other people's brains recklessly," Christiane Kubrick said.

The director of such violent visions as "A Clockwork Orange" and "Full Metal Jacket" also had a soft spot for old donkeys. "He had a donkey sanctuary for when their working life was over," Harlan said.

Christiane Kubrick said her husband eagerly screened any movie he could, from the dark dramas of Ingmar Bergman to lighthearted comedies like Steve Martin's "The Jerk."

"Sometimes he would only watch the first third of a film because of a certain actor or a bit of lighting," she said. "I'd often ask, 'How would you like other people to watch your movies that way?' And he'd say 'Oh, no, no, no!"'