La Dolce Vita

1960 / Italy / 174 min. / B&W

Director: Federico Fellini

Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée, Yvonne Furneaux, Magali Noël, Alain Cuny, Nadia Gray

This withering, satirical allegory follows Marcello Rubini (Mastroianni), a gossip columnist, over seven days and nights on his journey through the good life of Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness. Told episodically, and energetically, this cautionary tale of a man without a centre is a crossroads in Fellini’s career – he’s leaving behind the neorealism of, say, La Strada while preparing the way for the mad extravagances to come like Juliet of the Spirits, Amarcord and Satyricon. This is Fellini at his uncompromising, and accessible, best. It’s easy to see why voters in popular polls consistently rate it their favourite.