20 Movies That Are Flawed Masterpieces

7. Barry Lyndon (1975)

Barry Lyndon, like Eyes Wide Shut, is considered to be one of Stanley Kubrick's "less accessible" pictures - whatever that means. Unlike Eyes Wide Shut, though, which generally seems to be regarded as Kubrick's weakest film, it still holds a reputation for being something of a neglected masterpiece (there are some who would write it off entirely).

So "flawed masterpiece" seems to do justice to this movie, then, because did Kubrick ever make anything less than a masterpiece, flawed or otherwise? Barry Lyndon is an adaptation of a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, but presumably suffered - both critically and at the box office - because it followed Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange; all motion pictures of a more inherently memorable variety.

But make no mistake: despite its relatively slow and sometimes frustrating pace, Barry Lyndon is a gorgeous cinematic adventure - one to be savoured. Perhaps less "perfect" than a handful of other Kubrick ventures, there is still much to admire (the fact that Kubrick essentially shot the whole film using natural lighting techniques being one of those things). Still, Barry Lyndon is like an old painting in motion; it's a true original.