- Barry Lyndon is Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 period piece, widely considered one of his most underrated films. The film concerns the life of Irish peasant-turned-adventurer-turned-aristocrat Redmond Barry, who leaves his Irish home after his family con him into leaving alone his cousin with whom he is besotted. The first half shows how he then goes on to be a British deserter of the Seven Year’s War, a Prussian conscript, a spy and then a traveling dandy. The second half, however, is far more downbeat and involves his quest to become an aristocrat, which eventually merely leads to tragedy as he spurns his beautiful but fragile wife and brings his stepson to hate him with a passion.