The Great Beauty
Janus Films | Release Date: November 15, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
CineVueDaniel GreenJan 5, 2016
Drunk on the visual majesty of Rome, just as Fellini once was, this is arthouse cinema at its most effortlessly entrancing, with life and art blending into one magnificent whole. Read full review
100
San Francisco ExaminerWalter AddiegoDec 5, 2013
If you know Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita," you'll be unable to watch The Great Beauty without thinking about it. This gorgeous Italian movie, like its predecessor, balances pungent satire and a more melancholy mood in portraying the dissolute world of the upper crust in contemporary Rome. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsNov 15, 2013
This 43-year-old filmmaker is a major talent. Though he may not be the second coming of Fellini, his films all have a funny, refreshingly complex perspective, and his latest work is a perfect example of why he is the next big Italian thing. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 14, 2013
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. Read full review
100
Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonNov 12, 2013
There's little sense in trying to resist the film's relentless boogie-woogie party vibe, its tumultuous visual banquet, its unpredictable sense of switchblade satire, its fools' parade of modern grotesques, or its river of startling melancholy, turning from a wary trickle to a flash flood by film's end. Sorrentino's vision is the size of Rome itself, and his confidence is dazzling. Read full review
100
Time Out LondonDave CalhounMay 26, 2013
It’s an exploration of all things surface, yes, but it has soul too. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 26, 2013
This movie looks and feels superb, it is pure couture cinema. But there is also a excess of richness and bombast and for all its sleekness I felt that the spark of emotion was being hidden, and there is a kind of frustration in the operatic sadness. Read full review
100
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 26, 2013
A shimmering coup de cinema to make your heart burst, your mind swim and your soul roar. Read full review
91
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJan 30, 2014
The pointlessness of Jep's journey is Sorrentino's point, richly made. Read full review
90
Screen DailyLee MarshallJan 5, 2016
Although Sorrentino’s Fellini mash-up adds little of substance to what il maestro showed and said all those years ago, it’s still a remarkable cinematic experience. Read full review
90
The New YorkerAnthony LaneNov 22, 2013
Henry James, who loved the place, accused himself of "making a mere Rome of words, talking of a Rome of my own which was no Rome of reality." Sorrentino has made a Rome of images, and taken the same risk. But it was worth it. [25 Nov. 2013, p.134]
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriNov 22, 2013
The Great Beauty is a subtly daring cinematic high-wire act — an entire film built around one character’s unrealized, unspecified yearning. And it might just be the most unforgettable film of the year. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranNov 21, 2013
As its name promises, 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. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirNov 15, 2013
The Great Beauty is an ironic and passionate near-masterwork, like a nine-course dessert that makes you entirely forget the meal. Read full review
90
NPRElla TaylorNov 15, 2013
The ghost of Federico Fellini hovers wickedly over The Great Beauty, a fantastic journey around contemporary Rome and a riot of lush imagery juggling past and present, sacred and profane, gorgeous and grotesque. Read full review
90
VarietyJay WeissbergMay 26, 2013
Sorrentino continues to tackle major topics using an extraordinary combination of broad brushstrokes and minute detail. Passion via the intellect has become his trademark, well suited to this dissection of empty diversions, indulged in by latter-day Neros fiddling while Rome burns. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 5, 2016
It's a beauty, all right. It's more a style show than a deep philosophical treatise, but with surfaces this sleek and faces this interesting, I'll take style over substance any day. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereJan 31, 2014
An utterly ravishing portrait of listless luxuriance, a fantasy of decadent wealth and beauty. Read full review
88
Washington PostJohn DeForeNov 27, 2013
[Director Paolo Sorrentino] collects scenes of superficial extravagance and eccentricity, then finds the deeper yearnings they conceal. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle SmithNov 15, 2013
There’s an exhilarating sadness to it all that amounts to cinematic poetry. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJan 5, 2016
Sorrentino’s storytelling sometimes seems deliberately obscure, and his film can be as indulgent as the society it chronicles. But as this existential odyssey draws to a close, it sews itself up with the aplomb that only a confident, controlled filmmaker can marshal. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghDec 13, 2013
It’s a Fellini-esque carnival of humanity on display, a more debauched phantasmagoria reminiscent of “La Dolce Vita.” But “La Dolce Vita” created the paparazzi; The Great Beauty takes place in a world where the paparazzi have existed for decades. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNov 14, 2013
Sorrentino’s dazzling tribute to Roman indulgence is a bittersweet, slightly surreal epic. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid FearNov 12, 2013
If Marcello Mastroianni’s character from "La Dolce Vita" hadn’t stepped off the sweet-life treadmill, this is exactly who he would have become. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyOct 22, 2013
Splashes of overstatement aside, the ambition intoxicates. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungMay 26, 2013
Though Sorrentino’s vision of moral chaos and disorder, spiritual and emotional emptiness at this moment in time is even darker than Fellini’s...he describes it all in a pleasingly creative way that pulls audiences in through humor and excess. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJan 5, 2016
Even in its disassociation, The Great Beauty ingratiates itself as a witty and compelling companion – much like Jep Gambardella. Read full review
77
Film.comJordan HoffmanOct 22, 2013
Gambardella’s world-weary look back at his sweet life, eclipsed by his turning sixty-five, is a dizzying fantasia of flash and filigree, and what it lacks in direct narrative is well patched-over with frenetic and emotion-rich sequences. This movie is a sight and sound workout. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloNov 13, 2013
A lovely but rambling excursion through moneyed Rome, the film can’t have remotely the same impact as its predecessor, but it does offer a cornucopia of dazzling images—so many, frankly, that it becomes a bit exhausting, especially at nearly two and a half hours. Read full review
75
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthMay 26, 2013
La Grande Bellezza washes over you in series of scenes, visages, sensations and impressions, and although in this case it doesn't quite gel into a cohesive whole, it's nonetheless a journey worth taking; a travelogue through memory and dreams, in which life is greatest fiction we could ever create. Read full review
70
The DissolveScott TobiasNov 13, 2013
Little beyond Servillo’s presence gives the film any ballast, which is both asset and liability, freeing Sorrentino to pepper the screen with wild setpieces and fits of inspiration while encouraging a certain shapelessness. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenNov 11, 2013
Paolo Sorrentino's film is really just a huge turn-on that has the bad manners to go sour, succumbing to its own self-delusions of moral/political grandeur. Read full review
60
EmpireGuy LodgeOct 22, 2013
Sumptuous and self-indulgent, Sorrentino's latest is a Fellini-like feast for the eyes. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 22, 2013
The melancholy in this film is just as trumped up as the frenzy. Read full review
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