The Great Beauty () is a 2013 art drama film co-written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino. Filming took place in Rome starting on 9 August 2012. It premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it was screened in competition for the Palme d'Or. It was shown at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2013 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (winning Grand Prix), and at the 2013 Reykjavik European Film Festival.
The film won Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, as well as the Golden Globe and the BAFTA award in the same category. It is a co-production between the Italian Medusa Film and Indigo Film and the French Babe Films, with support from Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Pathé and France 2 Cinéma. With a production budget of €9.2 million, the film grossed over $24 million worldwide.
Plot The film opens with a quote from Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel Journey to the End of the Night: "Travel is useful; it exercises the imagination. All the rest is disappointment and fatigue. Our journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength. It goes from life to death. People, animals, cities, things – all are imagined. It's a novel, just a fictitious narrative. Littré says so, and he's never wrong. And besides, in the first place, anyone can do as much. You just have to close your eyes. It's on the other side of life."
Jep Gambardella is a 65-year-old seasoned journalist and theater critic, mostly committed to wandering among the social events of a Rome immersed in the beauty of its history and in the superficiality of its inhabitants today, in a merciless contrast. He also ventured into creative writing in his youth: he is the author of only one work called The Human Apparatus. Despite the appreciation and the many awards he received, Jep has not written other books, not only for his laziness but above all for a creative block from which he cannot escape. The purpose of his existence has been to become a "socialite", but not just any socialite, but "the king of society".
Jep is surrounded by several friends: Romano, a playwright who is perpetually on the lead of a young woman who exploits him; Lello, a mouthy and wealthy toy seller; Viola, a wealthy bourgeois and mother of a son with serious mental problems named Andrea; Stefania, a self-centred radical chic writer; Dadina, the dwarf editor of the newspaper where Jep works.
One morning, he meets the husband of Elisa, a woman who has been Jep's first and probably only love: the man announces that Elisa has died, leaving behind only a diary in which the woman tells of her love for Jep; thus, her husband discovered that he had been a mere surrogate for 35 years, nothing more than "a good companion". Elisa's husband, now afflicted and grieved, will soon find consolation in the affectionate welcome of his foreign maid. After this episode, Jep begins a profound and melancholic reinterpretation of his life and a long meditation on himself and on the world around him. And, above all, he thinks about starting to write again.
During the following days, Jep meets Ramona, a stripper with a personal secret, and Cardinal Bellucci, in whom an interest in cooking is more present than in his Catholic calling; Jep is gradually convinced of the futility and uselessness of his existence. Soon his "vicious circle" also breaks down: Ramona, with whom he had established an innocent and profound relationship, dies of a terminal disease; Romano, disappointed by the deceptive attractiveness of Rome, leaves the city, seeking out only Jep to say goodbye to; Stefania, socially humiliated by Jep, who had revealed her secrets and highlighted her hypocrisy, parts Jep's social friend circle. Viola, on the other hand, after the death of her son, donates all her possessions to the Church and becomes a missionary in Africa.
Just when hopes seem to abandon Jep once and for all, he is saved by a new episode: after a meeting, pushed by Dadina, who wants to get an interview with a "Saint", a Catholic missionary nun in the Third World, Jep goes to Giglio Island to report on the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia. Right here, remembering his first meeting with Elisa in a flashback, a glimmer of hope rekindles in him.
Cast
Music
Title Album Artists Composer 1 "I lie" (The Little Match Girl Passion) 1-01 Torino Vocalensemble David Lang 2 Far l'amore 2-01 Bob Sinclar & Raffaella Carrà 3 More than scarlet 2-02 Decoder Ring 4 Mueve la colita 2–17 El Gato D.J. 5 My heart's in the highlands 1-03 Else Torp, Christopher Bowers-Broadbent Arvo Pärt 6 Que no se acabe el mambo 2–14 La Banda Gorda 7 The Lamb 1-07 The choir of the Temple Churchdirected by Stephen Layton John Tavenertext by William Blake 8 Parade 2-06 Tape 9 III. Lento—Cantabile-semplicefrom Symphony No. 3 1–10 London Sinfonietta, Dawn Upshawdirected by David Zinman Henryk Górecki 10 World to come IV 1-02 Maya Beiser David Lang 11 Moody – ESG 12 Take my breath away 2-03 Gui Boratto 13 The beatitudes 1-05 Kronos Quartet Vladimir Martynov 14 Forever 2-08 Antonello Venditti Maurizio Fabrizio 15 Pancho – 16 There must be an angel(playing with my heart) – Lorraine Bowen Annie Lennox, David A. Stewart 17 Water from the same source 2–10 Rachel's 18 II. Adagiofrom Symphony in C major 1-08 film: Leopold Stokowski and his Symphony Orchestraalbum: New Zealand Symphony Orchestraconducted by Donald Johanos Georges Bizet 19 Dies iraefrom Requiem for my Friend 1-06 Elżbieta Towarnicka, Dariusz Paradowski, Piotr Lykowski, Piotr Kusiewicz, Grzegorz Zychowicz and Jan Szypowski Zbigniew Preisner 20 Everything trying 2–05 Damien Jurado 21 Discoteca 2–16 Exchpoptrue 22 We no speak americano 2–15 Studio Allstars 23 Ti ruberò 2–12 Monica Cetti 24 Trois mouvements perpétuels – Peter Beijersbergen van Henegouwen Francis Poulenc 25 Beata viscera 1–11 Vox Clamantis Magister Perotinus – Time 1-04 Lele Marchitelli (it) – River flows 1-09 Lele Marchitelli – Brain waves 2-04 Lele Marchitelli – Color my world 2-07 Lele Marchitelli – Surge of excitement 2-09 Lele Marchitelli – Settembre non comincia 2–11 Lele Marchitelli – Trumeau 2–13 Lele Marchitelli – Ramona 2–18 Los Paraguayos and Luis Alberto del Paraná Lele Marchitelli
Reception Italian Criticism Philippe Ridet, Rome correspondent for Le Monde, criticized the film in Internazionale while supporting the perspectives of journalists from La Stampa, Raffaella Silipo and Gianni Riotta:
Ridet's perspective was countered in an article by Tiziano Peccia for the Brazilian academic journal O Olho da História. The article, dedicated to beauty, followed the death of Umberto Eco:Tiziano Peccia, "Critica e critiche alla grande bellezza," O Olho da História, Issue 22 (April 2016)
Tiziano Peccia, "Critica e critiche alla grande bellezza," O Olho da História, Issue 22 (April 2016)
It has been observed that while international film criticism has generally judged Sorrentino's film positively, Italian critics have been divided with harsh judgments:
Or, on the contrary, with great appreciation:
This contrast of opinions has been interpreted in various ways, but in negative evaluations, it seems to reconnect with the recurring notion of the director's presumed arrogance and ambition to propose his vision, almost as if it were a sequel to La dolce vita by Federico Fellini, which instead resonates with the imagination of international audiences who appreciate this portrayal.
Critical response The film has a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 135 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 8/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Dazzlingly ambitious, beautifully filmed, and thoroughly enthralling, The Great Beauty offers virtuoso filmmaking from writer/director Paolo Sorrentino." The film holds a score of 86/100 on Metacritic based on 34 reviews, signifying "universal acclaim".
Robbie Collin at The Daily Telegraph awarded Sorrentino's film the maximum five stars and described it as "a shimmering coup de cinema". He likened it to Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City and Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita in its ambition to record a period of Roman history on film. "Rossellini covered the Nazi occupation of 1944; Fellini the seductive, empty hedonism of the years that followed. Sorrentino's plan is to do the same for the Berlusconi era," he wrote. Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter stated "Sorrentino's vision of moral chaos and disorder, spiritual and emotional emptiness at this moment in time is even darker than Fellini's (though Ettore Scola's The Terrace certainly comes in somewhere)." Critics have also identified other purposefully explicit film homages: to Roma, 8½, Scola's Splendor, Michelangelo Antonioni's La notte. Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar named the film as one of the twelve best films of 2013, placing it second in his list. In 2016, the film was ranked among the 100 greatest films since 2000 in an international critics poll by 177 critics around the world. It is currently director Paolo Sorrentino's second highest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes. In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 220.
Film critics' top lists Various critics named the film as one of the best of 2013. 1st: Time Out Londons 10 Best films of 2013 1st: Robbie Collin, The Daily Telegraph 2nd: Xan Brooks, The Guardian 2nd: Richard Corliss, Time 3rd: Chris Vognar, The Dallas Morning News 4th: Sight & Sound 4th: Lisa Schwarzbaum, BBC 6th: Jake Coyle, Associated Press 7th: Stephen Holden, The New York Times 8th: Simon Abrams & Alan Scherstuhl, The Village Voice 9th: Robert Gifford, The Diamondback 9th: Empires 50 Best Films of 2013 Best films of 2013: Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian Best Film of 2013: Justin Chang, Variety
Peter Bradshaw also named the film as one of the 20 best films of the 21st Century in the Guardian.
Awards and nominations