The Great Beauty (2013)
87%RT Audience Score: 80%
Awards & Nominations: Won 1 Oscar
60 wins & 77 nominations total
Dazzlingly ambitious, beautifully filmed, and thoroughly enthralling, The Great Beauty offers virtuoso filmmaking from writer/director Paolo Sorrentino
The Great Beauty is like a fancy Italian dinner – it’s rich, indulgent, and leaves you feeling satisfied. Sorrentino’s film is a feast for the eyes, with stunning visuals and a decadent atmosphere that transports you to the heart of Rome. It’s a bit like La Dolce Vita meets The Wolf of Wall Street, with a touch of Fellini-esque surrealism thrown in for good measure. If you’re looking for a film that’s both beautiful and thought-provoking, The Great Beauty is definitely worth a watch. Just make sure you’ve got some gelato on hand to complete the experience.
Production Company(ies)
Channel 4 News Channel 4 Frontline
Distributor
NA
Release Type
Streaming, Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
Fontana dell’Acqua Paola, Janiculum Hill, Rome, Lazio, Italy
MPAA / Certificate
Not Rated
Year of Release
2014
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Color:Color
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Sound mix:Dolby Digital
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Aspect ratio:2.35 : 1
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Runtime:NA
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Language(s):Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese
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Country of origin:France, Italy
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Release date:Release Date (Streaming): Mar 25, 2014
Genre(s)
Comedy/Drama
Keyword(s)
starring Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Iaia Forte, Pamela Villoresi, directed by Paolo Sorrentino, written by Paolo Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello, Comedy, Drama, box office performance, budget, reviewed by Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Marjorie Baumgarten, Jonathan Romney, Geoff Pevere, J R Jones, Peter Howell, Dustin Chang, Jordan M Smith, Yasser Medina, Robert Roten, Ryan Syrek, C.J Prince, Francesca Cima, Fabio Conversi, Nicola Giuliano, Jérôme Seydoux, MPAA rating, aging writer, passionate youth, Rome, midlife crisis, listless luxuriance, Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Baz Luhrmann, celebrity journalist, 65th birthday, sumptuousness, hyperbolically gaudy party, decadent wealth, beauty, melancholy, sadness, silence, thoughtfulness, super stylized, slick, camera moves, gyrating, young bodies
Worldwide gross: $24,665,023
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $30,825,044
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,539
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 3,361,510
US/Canada gross: $2,852,400
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $3,564,779
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 1,902
US/Canada opening weekend: $23,442
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $29,297
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,373
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): 9200000
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): $11,497,674
Production budget ranking: 1,614
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): $6,191,498
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): $13,135,872
ROI to date (est.): 74%
ROI ranking: 1,042
Carlo Verdone – Romano
Sabrina Ferilli – Ramona
Carlo Buccirosso – Lello Cava
Iaia Forte – Trumeau
Pamela Villoresi – Viola
Director(s)
Paolo Sorrentino
Writer(s)
Paolo Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello
Producer(s)
Francesca Cima, Fabio Conversi, Nicola Giuliano, Jérôme Seydoux
Film Festivals
Cannes, Toronto
Awards & Nominations
Won 1 Oscar
60 wins & 77 nominations total
Academy Awards
Oscar Best Foreign Language Film of the Year Winners, Oscar Best International Feature Film Of The Year Winners, Oscar Winners
All Critics (134) | Top Critics (44) | Fresh (122) | Rotten (12)
Sorrentino’s heady, vivid yet wearily melancholic musing on midlife crisis submerges you in sumptuousness until you emerge, blinking, as if from some impossibly glamorous party.
September 5, 2017 | Rating: 5/5
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
metro.co.uk
TOP CRITIC
Wild set-pieces and rueful observations are the stock in trade of this Italian film by one of the modern masters of cinema, Paolo Sorrentino.
February 13, 2014 | Rating: 3.5/5
Marjorie Baumgarten
Austin Chronicle
TOP CRITIC
I can’t remember when a film last gave me such a surge of pure pleasure — no, outright euphoria — as The Great Beauty.
February 6, 2014
Jonathan Romney
Film Comment Magazine
TOP CRITIC
The Great Beauty is an utterly ravishing portrait of listless luxuriance, a fantasy of decadent wealth and beauty that evokes Fellini’s La Dolce Vita by way of Baz Luhrmann.
January 31, 2014 | Rating: 3.5/4
Geoff Pevere
Globe and Mail
TOP CRITIC
Celebrating Rome in all its decay, this florid comedy by Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo, This Must Be the Place) opens with a hyperbolically gaudy party honoring a celebrity journalist on his 65th birthday.
January 30, 2014
J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
TOP CRITIC
A riotous film that finds depth, clarity and refreshment in even the shallowest of pools.
January 30, 2014 | Rating: 3.5/4
Peter Howell
Toronto Star
TOP CRITIC
If the film is a reflection of the Bellusconi bunga-bunga era and its hollowness, that’s fine too. It still retains that melancholy and sadness and silence and thoughtfulness against that super stylized, slick, camera moves and gyrating, young bodies.
February 22, 2021
Dustin Chang
Floating World
The Great Beauty is a cinematic marvel that playfully asks what we find truly joyous in life and questions their validity with a sardonic over exuberance.
November 4, 2020
Jordan M. Smith
IONCINEMA.com
Watching the enriching aesthetic of this film and witnessing its exuberant visual style is something that is priceless. [Full review in Spanish]
June 25, 2020 | Rating: 8/10
Yasser Medina
Cinemaficionados
This masterpiece of filmmaking, written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino seems at first to be a haphazard collage of images and sounds, but it somehow all fits together perfectly.
January 24, 2020 | Rating: A
Robert Roten
Laramie Movie Scope
All things considered, you’d be hard pressed to find a more stunning, thoughtful, honest and stirring film than The Great Beauty.
August 6, 2019 | Rating: A-
Ryan Syrek
The Reader (Omaha, NE)
Sorrentino has finally followed up that overlooked gem (This Must Be the Place) with The Great Beauty.
June 29, 2019
C.J. Prince
Way Too Indie…
Plot
An aging writer reflects on his past and the decadent beauty of Rome in The Great Beauty, a visually stunning film by Paolo Sorrentino.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
The Great Beauty stars Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella, an aging writer reflecting on his youth.
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