History Film / BarryLyndon

-->'''Narrator:''' It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor they are all equal now.

->''"It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now."'' [[note]]By that, the quote means [[AllAreEqualInDeath they're now all dead]].[[/note]]

->''"It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now."''[[note]]By that, the quote means [[AllAreEqualInDeath they're now all dead]].[[/note]]

* AffablyEvil: Captain Feeny, who speaks politely while robbing travelers at gunpoint.

In addition to being a perennial favorite of Kubrick's fans (who often tout it as one of his overlooked masterpieces), it's also widely loved by history buffs, who often hold it up as one of the most historically accurate films about the 18th century ever made. This is largely due to its unapologetic use of DeliberateValuesDissonance in its depiction of the time period, opting for an immersive WartsAndAll depiction of European society in the 1700s that doesn't bother making its characters likable or sympathetic by modern standards. It also doesn't hurt that it was filmed entirely on location, with several interior scenes notably lit entirely by ''candlelight'' -- an innovative technique that required using special ultra-fast camera lenses originally developed for NASA.

** A character attempts a suicide with strychnine, a substance not isolated or named until about half a century later.

* BigBadWannabe: Lord Bullingdon (even though he's no more or less likable a character than Barry himself is) ends up a major antagonist and goes back to his household at the end looking to settle the score...and is generally incompetent, smug, and pathetic. Barry, an expert duelist lost in booze and despair, barely even takes the guy seriously. [[spoiler: He has to fire his ''own gun'' at the ground during the climatic duel after Bullingdon misfires his own, [[DirtyCoward (and cowers with zero dignity the entire time when he thinks Barry has him dead to rights)]] with the implication being either that Barry just wants the guy to put him out of his misery, or that as much as he hates Bullingdon and as much of a jerkass as Barry's turned out to be, [[EveryoneHasStandards he'd still never stoop so low]] as to shoot the defenseless son of his wife whose seething hatred for Barry is honestly justified. Bullingdon even screws ''that'' up in that, while he shoots Lyndon, the shot ''doesn't even end up being fatal.'']]
* BigBrotherBully: Lord Bullingdon barely tolerates his younger half-brother Bryan simply because he's his [[WickedStepmother wicked stepfather's]] [[SinsOfOurFathers son]]. He spanks him for raising a ruckus over a pencil while he's trying to work and later uses him in creating a scene to humiliate both his mother and Barry.
* BitchInSheepsClothing: Barry's mother. She is introduced as a sweet old lady who is devoted to caring for her son after her husband's death. Once she reappears in the second act, however, she treats [[ObnoxiousInLaws Lady Lyndon]] and [[WickedStepmother Lord Bullingdon]] ruthlessly in pursuing her ambitions for Barry. Justified in that the unpleasant behavior and personality of Bullingdon gives perfect reason to antagonize him and as her affection towards her son and grandson are completely authentic. However, her treatment of Lady Lyndon is completely uncalled for and her misguided attempts to help her son, such as convincing him to undergo the mad struggle for a peerage, ultimately contribute to his downfall.

* {{Chiaroscuro}}: The film is famous for its use of natural lightning (candles, lots of candles) during nighttime scenes, thus emulating the chiaroscuro painting technique.

* DeathSeeker: Barry could be seen as one towards the end of the film. During the climatic duel, Barry chooses to delope when he has his opponent, Lord Bullingdon, at his mercy. One possible interpretation is that he knew Bullingdon would wish to continue the duel and would kill Barry in turn, who has been driven to despair in the wake of his beloved son's passing. Unfortunately, it doesn't pan out that way.

* DuelToTheDeath: The very first shot of the film shows Barry's father dying in a duel. This establishes a motif throughout the film, though [[spoiler: none of the three duels Barry gets himself into end in death]].
* DullSurprise: Justified. Creator/RyanONeal and Stanley Kubrick were panned at the American callowness used for Redmond Barry's portrayal, but that was ''entirely the point''. O'Neal was playing an emotional person who was forced to have a StiffUpperLip and more or less failing.

* ForegoneConclusion: The narrator has a whimsical tendency of predicting the outcome of the more suspenseful sequences in the movie, not to mention the end of the movie itself.

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Barry versus the world. Barry does what he has to in order to survive, even resorting to very low methods when he has to and never against someone who could be considered evil. Maintained in the second act with the opportunistic Barry working against his step-son, a young man whose life he is effectively ruining but who is not much better in terms of good character.

* MilesGloriosus: Captain Quinn plays the part of the dashing army captain in order to impress Nora, but when he actually faces Barry on the dueling ground he can't stop quaking in his boots. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope However]], it turns out they were both shooting blanks, and Quinn was only feiging fear in order to convince Barry the duel was real]].

* NervesOfSteel: For all his faults - and his desertion from the British army notwithstanding - Barry could never be accused of cowardice. Whereas each of his duels feature opponents nearly overcome with terror, Barry is able to face his mortal danger with a cold, unflinching, steely glare.

* NoWomansLand: This was one of the few period films of its time, and times afterwards, that really put across how misogynist and sexist the aristocratic setting romanticized in earlier literary adaptations are. A society where the only careers available to women is marriage and children, is not healthy either for women, for children or for their spouses.

* PragmaticAdaptation: Kubrick made many changes for his adaptation. The book is narrated from Barry Lyndon's first person perspective and Kubrick noted that the style of the book, with Thackeray's FootnoteFever generally got humour from pointing out how much Barry was an UnreliableNarrator. Kubrick felt that this was a literary device that wouldn't work in film but he added a third-person narrator who generally used euphemisms to undercut the story and pretensions of the characters. There are also more duels in the movie, indeed a running motif throughout the film which was missing in the book. The book was a serial picraresque story with a lot of {{Padding}} and Kubrick's film generally condenses the narration. The book's tone was also more openly satirical while Kubrick made it colder and drier in his retelling -- though no less satirical.

* RagsToRiches: Redmond Barry, Irish commoner, ends up a rich English nobleman married to beautiful woman. [[spoiler:Then subverted: Barry dies "poor and childless" as prophesied by the narration]].

* SociopathicSoldier: Barry becomes one of these in the book while fighting in the Seven Years War. It's implied that Barry's hellish treatment in the Prussian army contributed to him being this way and enthusiastically joining in "foraging" (read RapePillageAndBurn). There's a kind of disturbing scene where in a surprisingly gentle tone he describes a foppish and inexperienced opponent whose skull he bashed in with his musket and whose corpse he looted.

* TenPacesAndTurn: There's a twist in the "stand at your mark" version: the duelists ''take it in turns'' to fire, based on a coin toss. There's a memorable scene where [[spoiler:Lord Bullingdon]], having missed his shot, throws up in terror realizing that [[spoiler:Barry Lyndon]] now has ''carte blanche to shoot him in cold blood'', [[spoiler:though Barry opts to delope and shoot into the ground when it's his turn.]] This is actually how most duels of that period worked. Pistols were horribly inaccurate and many duelists deloped anyway; it was also considered very bad form to aim carefully. The point was more to test whether both parties cared enough about the issue to take the risk-- [[spoiler:not that this stops Bullingdon from shooting Barry in the leg when it's the former's turn again.]]

** Samuel Runt to Lady Lyndon. When Barry's mother requests that he resigns from his duty as she thinks he would have a bad influence on his lady and because they can't afford him a salary, he tries to convince her to let him stay, even be willing to work without pay. [[spoiler:She does succeed in dismissing Runt, which only succeeds in pushing Lady Lyndon completely off of the edge and to attempting suicide. Fortunately, he and the steward manage to convince Bullingdon to come back and fight Barry and, by the end of the film, he has returned to Lady Lyndon's side.]]