Barry Lyndon is a rich cinematic experience which fully deserves to once more be seen on the big screen and enjoy its status as one of Stanley Kubrick’s greatest achievements.
To watch Ryan O’Neal’s performance as the upwardly mobile Barry, part victim and part cad, is to see Kubrick’s perverse genius with actors. He cast a dullard only to jolt us, by the end, with the revelation of the bastard within.
Kubrick's superb version of William Thackery's first novel is meticulous and philosophically stimulating but it can leave some audiences unmoved on an emotional level.