8½ (1963)

Directed by

Federico Fellini

Genre

drama film, fantasy film, comedy drama

Country

France, Italy

Runtime

2h 18m

Rated

NR

Rating

8.1 of 10 from 2,542 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A famous film director struggles to come up with ideas for his next movie while dealing with the women in his life and his own memories and fantasies. The story blends his real world with surreal visions and flashbacks.

self-reflexivedreamlikewhimsicalconflictedvisually stylizedintrospectivechaoticplayfulanxious

What happens

8½ (Italian: Otto e mezzo [ˈɔtto e ˈmɛddzo]) is a 1963 avant-garde comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Federico Fellini. The metafictional narrative centers on famous Italian film director Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) who suffers from writer's block as he attempts to direct an epic science fiction film. Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk, Barbara Steele, and Eddra Gale portray the various women in Guido's life. An international co-production between France and Italy, the film was shot in black and white by cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo and features a score by Nino Rota, with costume and set designs by Piero Gherardi. 8½ was critically acclaimed and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costume Design (black-and-white). It is acknowledged as an avant-garde film and a highly influential classic. It was ranked 10th on the British Film Institute's The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2012 critics' poll and 4th by directors. It is included in the Vatican's compilation of 45 important films made before 1995, the 100th anniversary of cinema. The film ranked 7th in BBC's 2018 list of The 100 Greatest Foreign Language Films voted by 209 film critics from 43 countries around the world. It was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978". It is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential films of all time. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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