Some say that Ridley Scott's debut feature, based on a story by Joseph Conrad, is still his best. It's certainly one of the most beautiful, with a richly stylised evocation of the Napoleonic Wars. There is more than a touch of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon from a couple of years before, and the story of two duelling soldiers (Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel) whose decades-long grudge threatens to derail both their lives looks forward to Scott's brilliant The Last Duel (2021) - and of course, his divisive epic Napoleon (2023). 

"Think of 'Barry Lyndon' as if paced by Howard Hawks. That’ll give you some idea of the voluptuous fury of this wry, volatile romantic adventure. The burnished, lustrous images of Napoleonic Europe zip by, and the Emperor’s hussars racing through them make most movie swashbucklers look conventional and cautious... In retrospect, 'The Duellists' is one of the most impressive directorial débuts in British movie history." - Michael Sragow, The New Yorker