The Great Beauty

It reviews better than it plays — admired more than it is enjoyed.

• “A shimmering coup de cinema to make your heart burst, your mind swim and your soul roar.”

  Robbie Collin, The Telegraph · 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.”

  Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian · 100

• “It’s an exploration of all things surface, yes, but it has soul too.”

  Dave Calhoun, Time Out London · 100

• “There's little sense in trying to resist the film's relentless boogie-woogie party vibe, its tumultuous visual banquet, its unpredictable sense of switchblade satire, its fools' parade of modern grotesques, or its river of startling melancholy, turning from a wary trickle to a flash flood by film's end. Sorrentino's vision is the size of Rome itself, and his confidence is dazzling.”

  Michael Atkinson, Village Voice · 100

• “A deliriously alive movie, The Great Beauty is the story of a man, a city, a country and a cinema, though not necessarily in that order.”

  Manohla Dargis, The New York Times · 100