I saw it as a kid and it got me onto Thomas Hardy. Still his best film adaptation (though there's a lot to recommend in Tess and some in Jude as films,) and while I liked the cast and director, the way this new version is being marketed as a grand romance (Bathsheba and Oak don't even KISS in the novel,) strikes me as all wrong.
Schlesinger made glorious films for a good decade including this one. Then...he didn't. (and of course infamously someone has said that working with Madonna on Next Best Thing killed him.)
Is the film underseen? Granted I was a lit major and focused in Victorian lit, but I assumed it was extremely well known and regarded, despite losing a lot of money when it came out. It recently had a restored cinema reissue in the UK I think, and I assume we'll get a nice blu ray soon.