2. Barry Lyndon (1975)
Barry Lyndon is a film regarded as one of the all-time greatest which is especially special for its perfect cinematography and use of natural light. Period-dramas are difficult to do and do well but fear not if you haven't seen Barry Lyndon, Kubrick did it very well. Ryan O'Neal stars as Redmond Barry Lyndon, an eighteenth century Irish adventurer. As was the norm Kubrick directed, produced and wrote the film as-well as dabbling in various operations here and there. The film won four Academy Awards for Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design and Musical Score. Kubrick was nominated for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture, none of which he won making his only Academy Award win the one he received for the Special Effects on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Barry Lyndon is an arduously long film but for those of you who are devotees of cinema that won't bother you - hell, you've probably sat through Gone With The Wind and The Birth of a Nation in one sitting, right? - because the film is almost magical in its use of light and transferring that to the screen via use of candles and ultra-quick lenses. It is, much like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining, a feat in some technological advance in cinema (SFX in 2001 and Steadicam in The Shining.) The internet tells me that quotations from the film appear in various other films and upon viewing said films the internet is right; those films are The Age of Innocence, The Duellists, Rushmore and Dogville. Barry Lyndon truly is a great film and it is, like the great-late Roger Ebert said, possibly "the most beautiful film ever made."