PRESS

"CRITIC'S PICK! 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 ... As he emerges from the long wandering that has defined him — a drift that Mr. Sorrentino suggests that has been shared by one and all — Jep opens up to awe, affirming what all visitors know: we are only passing through, so we had better make the most of our visit."
—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

"A radiant work on the meaning of life ... The Great Beauty is drop-dead gorgeous, a film that is luxuriously, seductively, stunningly cinematic. But more than intoxicating imagery is on director Paolo Sorrentino's mind, a lot more."
—Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times

"The face of Toni Servillo is one of the treasures of modern cinema ... Look no further, if you wish to know whether, where, and in what guise the spirit of Fellini remains at work — and, better still, at play."
—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

"The Great Beauty is a subtly daring cinematic high-wire act ... And it might just be the most unforgettable film of the year."
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture

"Like Fellini, but even better ... it is a film full of music, dance, Rome’s crème brûlée light and a sensual tenderness, so that it might have been made by Renoir."
—David Thomson, The New Republic

"I can’t remember when a film last gave me such a surge of pure pleasure — no, outright euphoria — as The Great Beauty."
—Jonathan Romney, Film Comment

"Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty is the best film I've seen all year. A magnificent achievement."
Derek Malcolm

"A blast. There’s little sense in trying to resist the film’s tumultuous visual banquet. Sorrentino's vision is the size of Rome itself, and his confidence is dazzling."
—Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice

"The Great Beauty, an essay on nostalgia, gives even the cynics a faith in the vibrancy of movies and the reviving artistry of Paolo Sorrentino ... It is the year’s grandest, most exhilarating foreign film."
—Richard and Mary Corliss, TIME Magazine

"CRITIC'S PICK - FOUR STARS! A glorious throwback to old-school Italian cinema. Bold, first-class filmmaking."
—David Fear, Time Out New York

"Mean, funny, moving, and altogether daring ... Sorrentino’s Rome has a visual splendor that will knock your eyes out. The city has never been photographed so magically."
—John Powers, Vogue

"FIVE STARS! Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty lives up to its title: It’s resplendent, it’s ravishing."
—Craig Seligman, Bloomberg

"A gorgeous Italian feast ... Never have cynicism and disillusion seemed more intoxicating."
—Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

"A fantastic journey around contemporary Rome and a riot of lush imagery ... At 142 short minutes, The Great Beauty is nothing short of sublime."
—Ella Taylor, NPR

"FOUR STARS! Sorrentino’s dazzling tribute to Roman indulgence is a bittersweet, slightly surreal epic ... A glorious experience."
—Elizabeth Weitzman, The New York Daily News

"Soars into that rarified atmosphere where art, entertainment, travelogue and circus all collide in a great, beautiful mash-up of ideas and imagery ... truly marvelous."
—Kirk Honneycut, Honeycutt's Hollywood

"The movie is a masterpiece, a grand swooning epic, lush to the point of insanity."
—Catherine Shoard, The Guardian

"An exhilarating, exuberant yet elegiac survey of the fabulously tawdry lives of Rome’s filthy rich and almost-famous."
—N.B., The Economist

"FOUR STARS! Servillo and Sorrentino are both at their best in The Great Beauty, making comparisons to Maestro Fellini's work at once inadequate and appropriately grandiose."
—Simon Abrams, RogerEbert.com

"The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) is one of the most delightfully entertaining, visually sumptuous and smartly written motion pictures of 2013 ... a passionate, glorious, grand and glossy valentine to Rome and all it’s complexities, paradoxes and bizarreness."
—Frank J. Avella, New York Cool

"THREE AND-A-HALF STARS! There’s an exhilarating sadness to it all that amounts to cinematic poetry."
—Kyle Smith, The New York Post

"A formally gorgeous, lyrically shot epic ... Think the sick soul of Europe with a thumping bassline."
—Beth Hanna, Thompson on Hollywood

"Thrillingly good ... Sorrentino offers the most ravishing footage of Rome I've ever seen."
—John Powers, Fresh Air, National Public Radio

"A densely packed, often astonishing cinematic feast that honors Rome in all its splendor and superficiality."
—Jay Weissberg, Variety

"A gorgeously shot picture of contemporary Rome ... like the visual equivalent of T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland with references to a glorious cultural past that now simply exists in fragments."
—Regina Weinreich, The Huffington Post

"FOUR STARS! A visual and aural delight from start to finish, featuring gorgeous cinematography by regular Sorrentino DP Luca Bigazzi, glorious sets by Stefania Cella, dazzling art direction by Ludovica Ferrario, and a lovely melancholy score by Lele Marchiteli ... But the key element in the film, which is Italy’s official entry for the 2014 Academy Awards, is Servillo’s steady, intelligent, yet sad face, his eyes seeing a lot more than just what’s in front of him. It’s an epic performance in an epic film."
This Week in New York

"May go on to become director Paolo Sorrentino's masterpiece ... In terms of audacity, ambition and sheer artistic brio this is as good as classical filmmaking gets. Italian excess hasn't looked or sounded this good in decades."
—David Hall, Verite

"Paolo Sorrentino's lush masterpiece The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) reveals that the eternal city still confounds and coruscates with contradictions ... Daring in breadth and sensual in its attention to detail, it is a visual feast that is rare in current cinema."
—Alisa Sniderman, The Last Magazine

"Sometimes all you want from a movie is more. Sorrentino's opulent carnival of modern Rome is the most more you could ever hope to see ... I adore this movie."
—Wesley Morris, Grantland

"Instantly my favorite film thus far this year."
—Brian Miller, The Seattle Weekly

"A film more ravishingly Felliniesque than many of Federico Fellini’s own movies. Director Paolo Sorrentino doesn’t simply mimic the master’s style and preoccupations, which anyone could do, but conjures the kind of emotions that made La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2 and others endure."
—John DeFore, The Washington Post

"FOUR STARS! Glorious, cynical, and intoxicating."
—John Anderson, Newsday