Which novel inspired Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon?

The Luck of Barry Lyndon, by William Makepeace Thackeray, inspired Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.

Published in 1975, Kubrick’s film is based on Thackeray’s 1844 picaresque novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon. The story follows Redmond Barry, an ambitious Irishman who moves through gambling, military service, aristocratic society, and marriage as he attempts to improve his social position. Ryan O’Neal plays the central character in the film.

Kubrick’s adaptation preserves the novel’s interest in social mobility and self-invention, but it presents the story with a cool, deliberately distant style. Michael Hordern’s narration, delivered from an omniscient perspective, frequently comments on the characters’ apparent successes and failures. That narration helps retain a link to Thackeray’s satirical approach.

The film is also renowned for its visual design and period cinematography. Kubrick used specially modified lenses to photograph some interiors by candlelight, creating images resembling eighteenth-century paintings. The title is sometimes shortened informally to Barry Lyndon, but the source novel’s full title is The Luck of Barry Lyndon.