SummaryJep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
Directed By:Paolo Sorrentino
Written By:Paolo Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello
The Great Beauty
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
86
User score
Generally Favorable
8.0
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Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
94% Positive
32 Reviews
32 Reviews
6% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Jan 5, 2016
100
Drunk on the visual majesty of Rome, just as Fellini once was, this is arthouse cinema at its most effortlessly entrancing, with life and art blending into one magnificent whole.
May 26, 2013
100
This movie looks and feels superb, it is pure couture cinema. But there is also a excess of richness and bombast and for all its sleekness I felt that the spark of emotion was being hidden, and there is a kind of frustration in the operatic sadness.
User score
Generally Favorable
84% Positive
185 Ratings
185 Ratings
10% Mixed
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
6% Negative
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
Dec 1, 2021
10
Superb.
Harsh, visual, romantic and sad movie about life, society, getting old...
It's get get better every time you watch it
Oct 27, 2015
10
I feel like this movie has a similar origin story to The Fall, except that instead of trying to do and be a lot of different things, The Great Beauty just is and somehow breezes by everything else that came before it with nouveau cool. This is not for people that have seen The Expendables on purpose. It’s art, and while the characters are often pretentious it is not so itself. It touches upon everything by being true in everything it touches. There is poise, and brilliance, and perfection in the performances, the script, the direction, and the exquisite cinematography. The only complaint I can possibly think of is that it has the ambiance of that old world sexism in it, the kind that is unintentional but also unapologetic. There’s nothing overt, but the protagonist Jep smacks of those older white male intellectuals that get to go around feeling like they get something that no one else can. He is not that, because no one in the film feels like a trope, but throughout young women appear as poseurs disproportionately to their male counterparts. I don’t know if that’s true of Italy, but where everything else in the film feels like it resonates on a universal level, this feels temporal, and it drags the achievement down a little from where it might have otherwise been.
Nov 22, 2013
90
The Great Beauty is a subtly daring cinematic high-wire act — an entire film built around one character’s unrealized, unspecified yearning. And it might just be the most unforgettable film of the year.
Jan 31, 2014
88
An utterly ravishing portrait of listless luxuriance, a fantasy of decadent wealth and beauty.
Nov 14, 2013
80
Sorrentino’s dazzling tribute to Roman indulgence is a bittersweet, slightly surreal epic.
Nov 13, 2013
75
A lovely but rambling excursion through moneyed Rome, the film can’t have remotely the same impact as its predecessor, but it does offer a cornucopia of dazzling images—so many, frankly, that it becomes a bit exhausting, especially at nearly two and a half hours.
Nov 22, 2013
42
The melancholy in this film is just as trumped up as the frenzy.
Aug 12, 2015
10
the best film ive ever seen its the type of film that stick in your mind maybe forever ;every shot IS STUNNING/music is from another world/ and what let this film be a masterpiece or a work of art is how affected your soul and your mind with all this beauty and philosiphical topics all that and more from the acting to the cinematography 10/10 i feel empty after finished this piece of art that weirdly entertaining maybe the best experience ive ever had
Apr 27, 2018
6
This film has almost no purpose. There's no clear meaning at the end of the day and it doesn't talk about anything. I think that was the idea of Sorrentino because he also says something along those lines with Jep as a mouthspeaker. But the fact is that this film is quite boring and slow, with a lot of meaningless shots that are typical of Sorrentino's works. Great aesthetics but overall pointless.
Nov 20, 2014
3
This must be one of these 'Art' movies. If you are not a specific fan of this kind of picture, better avoid The Great Beauty. Nothing of substance, only pretty shots here and there and boring, nonsensical dialog, plot and characters.
Jul 9, 2014
2
The movie teaches us two important life lessons and then demonstrates that the viewer who watched this film to the end failed to grasp them. At one point the main hero states that by the age of 75 he has learned not to waste time on something he doesn't like. I've made this mistake by watching this whole boring movie. And the second lesson is that hard work and sacrifice does not necessarily lead to anything meaningful in the end. Such is demonstrated by the unsatisfying movie culmination of pure gibberish, contrary to what we hoped for, considering it got an Oscar. The reason that this review gives this movie 2, not 1 or 0 is that the picture has a number of pleasing scenes (although some gross ones as well) and that the greatest beauty is indeed revealed in the end, although trivial, but nevertheless true. The greatest beauty is ****
Production Company:
- Indigo Film
- Medusa Film
- Babe Film
- Pathé
- France 2 Cinéma
- Mediaset
- Canal+
- Ciné+
- France Télévisions
- Regione Lazio
- Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (MiBAC)
- Banca Popolare di Vicenza
- Roma Lazio Film Commission
- Eurimages
- MEDIA Programme of the European Union
- Biscottificio Verona
Release Date:Nov 15, 2013
Duration:2 h 22 m
Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Academy Awards, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
David di Donatello Awards
• 9 Wins & 18 Nominations
