Genre: Drama / Romance / War Director(s): Stanley Kubrick Release Date: 01 January 1975 Movie rating: 8.1

Initially met with a lukewarm reception from the critics, Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon” is now considered a masterpiece, as well as one of Kubrick’s finest works. Kubrick also served as the film’s producer and screenwriter, adapting the novel “The Luck of Barry Lyndon” by William Makepeace Thackeray. It is a period piece about a fictional 18th century Irish adventurer. The film is divided into two acts, the first one following the life of Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) from his childhood and recounting how he lost his father as a child and having to flee the country after shooting his romantic rival in a duel. He then enlists in the British Army, and later deserts it. He is captured by a Prussian officer who forces him to join the Prussian army, where he excels and even gets commended, and later enjoys a post in the Prussian ministry of Police. He then unites with a professional gambler called Chevalier de Balibari and they become gambling partners, running their scheme all across Europe. In the second act we see Barry marrying the beautiful and wealthy Countess of Lyndon and his subsequent attempts at infiltrating the British high society, leading to his eventual fall from grace.

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