Life Is Beautiful (1998)
77 %
Reviews Counted: 82 Fresh: 63 Rotten:19 Average Rating: 7.4/10
Consensus:
Benigni's earnest charm, when not overstepping its bounds into the unnecessarily treacly, offers the possibility of hope in the face of unflinching horror.
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Synopsis: Conjuring keys and hats out of thin air, Guido (Roberto Benigni), a clever Jewish-Italian waiter, successfully courts Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), a beautiful local woman, in Fascist pre-WWII Italy. His life, however, is turned upside down a few years later when he, Dora, and their young son,... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini, Guistino Durano, Sergio Bini Bustric
Director: Roberto Benigni
Screenwriter: Roberto Benigni, Vincenzo Cerami
Producer: Gianluigi Braschi, Elda Ferri
Composer: Nicola Piovani
Screenwriter: Roberto Benigni, Vincenzo Cerami
Producer: Gianluigi Braschi, Elda Ferri
Composer: Nicola Piovani
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Reviews
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06/17/08
Top Critic
With Life Is Beautiful, the final frontier of schmaltz has been reached.
03/11/08
Sentimental and fake, Benigni's well-intentioned Holocaust dramedy doesn't work on any level, not even as a children's fable. Inexplicably, it won a major prize at the 1998 Cannes Festival.
01/26/07
Benigni does with the Nazi setting what Chaplin didn't dare in The Great Dictator--he lets the liberating nonsense triumph.
03/22/06
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02/09/06
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07/21/05
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04/09/05
Benigni's point, made with tender sensitivity, is that a child's innocence is worth protecting.
07/01/04
Top Critic
This cross between Schindler's List and Hogan's Heroes works better than it has any right to, but not as well as most people would have you believe.
08/11/03
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05/22/03
I had thought The Other Sister was appalling in its exploitation of the mentally disabled to grab your entertainment dollar, but that was nothing, NOTHING compared to what the funny little Italian man has wrought.
12/08/02
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