“An ice-pack of a movie, a masterpiece in every insignificant detail … It’s a coffee-table movie; the stately tour of European high life is a three-hour slideshow for art history majors.”
—Pauline Kael

Kubrick’s elegant adaptation of Thackeray’s novel about an amoral Irish social climber (Ryan O’Neal) in 18th-century Europe has grown in esteem over the years as audiences continue to discover it. The film’s technical brilliance — it was shot largely by candlelight — has tended to overshadow its unique style of humor.