One of the most beautiful of all Stanley Kubrick’s films, originally released in 1975, this slyly savage tale of social climbing in the 18th century is also arguably his funniest. Ryan O’Neal stars as Irish rogue and ne’er-do-well Redmond Barry who, after defeating a love rival in a duel and ignominiously deserting the army, reinvents himself as British aristocrat Barry Lyndon. As leisurely as it is painterly, this is a masterclass in cinematography – famously, Kubrick used nothing but natural light in all but a few scenes. Don’t miss the chance to watch it in a cinema.
