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Movies / On DVD / Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon

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Barry Lyndon (1975)

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Reviews Counted:49

Fresh:46

Rotten:3

Average Rating:7.8/10

Rated: PG

Runtime: 3 hrs 9 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:30-01-2009

Synopsis: BARRY LYNDON is Stanley Kubrick's epic costume drama based on William Makepeace Thackeray's picaresque novel. It tells the story of a young rogue who wanders through life getting lost in various... BARRY LYNDON is Stanley Kubrick's epic costume drama based on William Makepeace Thackeray's picaresque novel. It tells the story of a young rogue who wanders through life getting lost in various adventures, meeting his share of women and oddball characters. When Redmond Barry (Ryan O'Neal, trying desperately to maintain an Irish brogue) becomes jealous of Captain Quin's advances on Barry's beloved cousin, he challenges the man to a duel. Winning the duel, young Barry is forced to leave his home and his mother, and off on his adventures he goes. He meets thieves, lonely soldier brides, Prussian army leaders, and British widows, inventing new stories about himself at every turn of the road. BARRY LYNDON is lush and magnificent, sparkling with color, every frame reminiscent of the finest European art. The blues of the Prussian army uniforms and the reds of the British contrast sharply with the majestic green land and mountains in nearly every background. Kubrick often begins a shot close in, then zooms out to reveal the beautiful natural landscape and ornate rooms surrounding the now seemingly insignificant characters. With rousing performances from O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Hardy Kruger, and Leonard Rossiter, jaw-dropping camerawork, spectacular natural lighting, and a marvelous classical-music soundtrack painstakingly put together by Kubrick, BARRY LYNDON is a dramatic romantic epic that may be Kubrick's most beautiful film. [More]

Starring: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger

Starring: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger, Steven Berkoff, Gay Hamilton, Marie Kean, Murray Melvin, Andre Morell, Leonard Rossiter, Philip Stone

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Producer: Stanley Kubrick
Composer: Leonard Rosenman

[See More Credits]

Reviews for Barry Lyndon

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Its story of an 18th-century social climber, adapted from Thackeray, unfolds in Gainsborough-esque landscapes and in rooms lit either by milky-white sunshine or shimmering candle flames.

Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | comment Comment
02/05/09
Edward Porter
Edward Porter
Sunday Times (UK)

The film's truly outstanding performance is by Patrick Magee, an actor of terrifying intensity.

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
02/05/09
Philip French
Philip French
Observer [UK]

One of cinema’s most heartfelt and sustained (it runs over three hours), if cynical, visions of an individual’s powerlessness.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
01/30/09
Wally Hammond
Wally Hammond
Time Out
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It's a tour de force, with the director pushing the limits of film technology to realise his singular vision, developing new camera lenses to tell this 18th Century cautionary tale with only natural, available light.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
01/30/09
Channel 4 Film
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It’s a work of technical brilliance and considerable beauty; the slow and deliberate pacing only serves to make Barry’s adventures more fascinating.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
01/30/09
Wendy Ide
Wendy Ide
Times [UK]
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Barry Lyndon is something to rediscover.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
01/30/09
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
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Director Stanley Kubrick's opulent epic is certainly a feast for the eyes, with every scene beautifully framed and the attention to exquisite detail breathtaking.

Full Review Source: Sky Movies | comment Comment
01/30/09
Sky Movies
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You can't tear your eyes from it. Loosely held together by Michael Hordern's drolly ironic narration, it might not catch very much of Thackeray's tone but it creates a world that is sumptuously, even shockingly, vivid.

Full Review Source: Independent | comment Comment
01/30/09
Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Independent

Like all Kubrick films, it's a curiosity, but Barry Lyndon contains more than enough beauty, artistry and hard-won truth to justify its conceits.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
10/03/07
Channel 4 Film
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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.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
10/03/07
Ian Nathan
Ian Nathan
Empire Magazine
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The constant array of waxworks figures against lavish backdrops finally vulgarises the visual sumptuousness.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment 2 Comments
01/26/06
Time Out
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A bold, experimental screen adaptation, Kubrick's much understood film at the time of its release, is a masterpiece, marking the helmer's meticulous attention to every single frame.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
02/10/08
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

It paints a detailed picture of Europe's 18th-century period that could have been drawn by master painters such as Constable, Gainborough and Watteau.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
05/25/07
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Stanley Kubrick's magisterial Thackeray adaptation now stands as one of his greatest and most savagely ironic films, not to mention one of the few period pieces on celluloid so transporting that it seems to predate the invention of cameras.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
05/23/07
Jim Ridley
Jim Ridley
Village Voice

Grave, painterly, and bitterly satirical.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
05/08/07
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Ryan O'Neal's excellent performance captures the shallow opportunism endemic to the title character who is brought down as much by his own flaws as by the mores of the ordered social structure of 18th-century England.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
05/08/07
Variety
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All of Stanley Kubrick's features look better now than when they were first released, but Barry Lyndon, which fared poorly at the box office in 1975, remains his most underrated. It may also be his greatest.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
05/08/07
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader

Barry Lyndon isn't a great success, and it's not a great entertainment, but it's a great example of directorial vision: Kubrick saying he's going to make this material function as an illustration of the way he sees the world.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment 1 Comment
05/08/07
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
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A true neglected jewel in the Kubrick crown.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
04/09/07
Rob Gonsalves
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com

Seeing Barry Lyndon a second time, I found myself charmed by just how funny and lively it is, in an underplayed way, when it just seemed cold the first time around.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
10/16/06
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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