La dolce vita (1960)

Federico Fellini’s ode to Rome presents a lush, vibrant exterior to the swinging city, before revealing its rotting moral core.

Federico Fellini’s epic charts a week in the life of a tabloid journalist (Marcello Mastroianni) as the excesses of modern Roman life go on around him.

Beginning with the startling image of a statue of Christ being transported over the city by helicopter, Fellini’s three-hour panorama of the contemporary Roman ‘good life’ marked a decisive turning point in the director’s career. Leaving behind his small-scale, realism-rooted dramas of the 50s, this episodic story of a tabloid reporter’s comings and goings within the decadent upper reaches of modern Italian society found Fellini moving in a flamboyant new direction.

The film’s atmosphere of moral lassitude, together with its then scandalous sexual frankness, created a popular sensation, introducing the world to the word paparazzi. Together with Antonioni’s L’avventura (1960), its modernity of form and subject matter ushered Italian arthouse cinema into the 1960s. The image of Anita Ekberg cavorting in the Trevi fountain is one of the era’s most iconic.

“Socially and historically a landmark film, sensing, influencing and ambivalently critiquing the role of media, gossip, hedonism and celebrity in modern culture – but all done with brio, scale and complexity achieved with an astonishing lightness of touch, utterly confident in itself as cinema.” Richard Dyer

“Sprawling, infuriating, profoundly inventive – a film world populated by beautiful and sinister creatures that never ceases to surprise.” Belén Vidal

“An acrid romp through a demi-monde choking to death on its own ennui-fuelled excess. We’re all still being deadened by the same cultural hollowness depicted here, just without any of the glamour, our present as garish and frightful as that fish on the beach. If you’re gonna overdose on beauty, you might as well have Anita Ekberg around.” Charles Bramesco

1960 Italy, France
Directed by
Federico Fellini
Produced by
Giuseppe Amato, Angelo Rizzoli
Written by
Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli
Featuring
Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée
Running time
174 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for La dolce vita

Critics

Matthew Asprey Gear
UK
John Baxter
Australia
Phillip Bergson
UK
Ranjita Biswas
India
Charles Bramesco
USA
Carlos Cháves Rodriguez
Peru
Lorenzo Codelli
Italy
Andrew Collins
UK
Michel Demopoulos
Greece
Ernesto Diezmartínez
Mexico
Wheeler Winston Dixon
USA
Nenad Dukić
Serbia
Richard Dyer
UK
Mark Harris
USA
Peter Howell
Canada
Andreas Kilb
Germany
András Bálint Kovács
Hungary
Ivan Kozlenko
Ukraine
Vassilis Kroustallis
Estonia
Florence Maillard
France
Antonio Mariotti
Switzerland
Emanuela Martini
Italy
Roy Menarini
Italy
Paolo Mereghetti
Italy
Khalid Mohamed
India
Camille Paglia
USA
Miguel Pendás
USA
Muszatics Péter
Hungary
Agnes Petho
Hungary/Romania
Alberto Pezzotta
Italy
Stephen Puddicombe
UK
Arjun Sajip
UK
Cary Rajinder Sawhney
UK
Barbara Schweizerhof
Germany
Elena Smolina
Russia/USA
Mira Staleva
Bulgaria
Eduardo Stupía
Argentina
Arthur Tennøe
Norway
Alexandru Tirdea
Romania
Belén Vidal
UK
Kaspar Viilup
Estonia
Janusz Wróblewski
Poland

Directors

Sanjay Leela Bhansali
India
Guillaume Brac
France
Roger Corman
Nina Danino
UK
Mark Gustafson
USA
Jack Hazan
UK
Joanna Hogg
UK
Alejandro González Iñárritu
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Sebastián Lelio
Chile
Mariano Llinás
Argentina
Pia Marais
South Africa/Germany
Alejo Moguillansky
Argentina
Paweł Pawlikowski
Poland
Ben Reed
UK
Alonso Ruizpalacios
Mexico
Tilda Swinton
UK
Theodore Witcher
USA