Ryan O'Neal and Marisa Berenson star in Stanley Kubrick's lavish adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's classic 18th-century novel about the rise and fall of a sensitive and dashing rogue. Forced to leave Ireland after killing an English officer in a duel, handsome young Redmond Barry (O'Neal) seeks his fortune as a soldier in Prussia, as a spy then as a gambler living among the elite of Europe. He changes his name and marries an aristocrat (Berenson) for her wealth, but the acceptance he seeks finally eludes him.