Life Is Beautiful (La Vita è bella) Reviews and Ratings


  • DwightWard
    February 28, 2009
    DwightWard
    Life truly is beautiful, especially seen through the eyes of Roberto Benigni.
  • onewithcat
    February 27, 2009
    onewithcat
    Hands down, my very favorite movie of all time.
  • komalzb
    February 27, 2009
    komalzb
    5 star rating not enough, masterpiece.
  • cspanerio
    February 27, 2009
    cspanerio
    I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I cried but I also laughed and smiled. Roberto Benigni is superb as Guido, he's just simply AMAZING! I highly recommend "Life is Beautiful."
  • lemuelmaigue
    February 26, 2009
    lemuelmaigue
    One of the best. I saw this on a film showing in our school. I was amaze on how this movie was told in a way that it will not be boring.
  • IRubster
    February 25, 2009
    IRubster
    A beautiful story complete with satire, physical comedy, love, and sadness.
  • fierybrightduskdawn
    February 24, 2009
    fierybrightduskdawn
    when you have to anaylize a film you grow to hate it.
  • nulurhm
    February 21, 2009
    nulurhm
    this movie as beautiful as its title...
  • leojnews01
    February 19, 2009
    leojnews01
    truly worth watvhing
  • IzzyGlow
    February 19, 2009
    IzzyGlow
    6/10
    The film's plot takes far too long to start and leaves us with one of the most deperessing happy-endings in the history of cinema.
  • jetty2728
    February 17, 2009
    jetty2728
    Beautiful,hearwarming and touching!!!
    Another good holocaust story!!!
    The concept and idea of the movie is so brilliant....
    you seldom see comedy and humour elements in these kind of story!
    An amazing journey....it shows you the power of love....and how laughter and "cheating...( read more)" can bring hope to people....
    The only thing that I don't like, is the starting....it's too slow....
  • katrene555
    February 16, 2009
    katrene555
    Really sad movie. Best movie to see if you feel like crying.
  • joyjuice4958
    February 16, 2009
    joyjuice4958
    I love this movie, it its moving and beautiful!
  • Linzsterrr
    February 10, 2009
    Linzsterrr
    unique, inspiring, funny, and so incredibly sad! this is an amazing movie.
  • angelamhi1974
    February 5, 2009
    angelamhi1974
    This film is one of the best WWII films ever made!!!!
  • rwcandeer
    February 4, 2009
    rwcandeer
    Unique. One of a kind. Nothing like it. See it.
  • lecokitaerincita
    January 30, 2009
    lecokitaerincita
    my all time favorite movie easily
  • computerman
    January 30, 2009
    computerman
    Very good







    Very Good
  • mrsedgell2
    January 29, 2009
    mrsedgell2
    Buongiorno, Principesa! What a terrific movie and one that is well worth your time!
  • malacaynomuerto
    January 26, 2009
    malacaynomuerto
    muchas formas de ver la guerra y esta es muy conmovedora
  • 46vrossi
    January 25, 2009
    46vrossi
    One My Favorite movie Of All Time
  • nuligaya
    January 22, 2009
    nuligaya
    Proves that you don't need sex or violence to make an interesting movie. One of the most intelligent films I've watched.
  • slyone3967
    January 18, 2009
    slyone3967
    A film everyone should see!
  • CandaceMom23
    January 15, 2009
    CandaceMom23
    This movie is so wonderful! Sad... But what a perspective on life! Love it!!
  • kurtisnelson
    January 15, 2009
    kurtisnelson
    Excellent. Funny. Accurate.
  • Gildaaa
    January 15, 2009
    Gildaaa
    grande film...non ci sono parole
  • methodpanda
    January 13, 2009
    methodpanda
    always reminds me that life is beautiful
  • sc0rpina
    January 12, 2009
    sc0rpina
    Life is beautiful indeed... Roberto is a master of emotional movies...
  • dreamfaeries
    January 11, 2009
    dreamfaeries
    So brilliant, I cried...
  • dndasingmysong
    January 11, 2009
    dndasingmysong
    i luv dad

    i hate war
  • FindMartha
    January 10, 2009
    FindMartha
    Um filme que nos mostra que mesmo no meio da mais profunda dor, é possivel levar a felicidade aos que mais amamos. Uma comédia dramática de um actor fenomenal.
  • paulanthonynelson
    January 10, 2009
    paulanthonynelson
    I know it's not to everyone's taste, but it makes me cry like a small child every time I watch it. It's a lock.
  • trusata
    January 8, 2009
    trusata
    the way someone treat troublesome is quite inspiring. i found this movie is so great.
  • stdehop
    January 7, 2009
    stdehop
    so beautiful. i have not cried in a movie in a very long time.
  • yanidp
    January 6, 2009
    yanidp
    The spirit of life ...
  • ovianty
    January 5, 2009
    ovianty
    menyingkapi masalah hidup dengan fun, menghibur bgt.
  • Micoz15
    January 4, 2009
    Micoz15
    forse il capitolo più importante per il cinema italiano, a distanza di anni e anni e anni.....
  • claraboo
    January 4, 2009
    claraboo
    A heart warming yet heart breaking film. One of my favourites of all time.
  • Alejoss
    January 3, 2009
    Alejoss
    Beautiful movie, contrasts the good and bad about humans, love in the middle of the holocaust.
  • Aroan
    January 3, 2009
    Aroan
    Laughing in the face of adversity is the best way to triumph over it. This is a sentiment I share with Roberto Benigni, director of Life is Beautiful (La Vita è Bella) the only movie to ever make me laugh out loud and leave me with sad tears in my eyes.

    The film has two parts to...( read more) it. In the first part Benigni, who also co-wrote the script with Vincenzo Cerami, plays Guido, a waiter working for his uncle who owns a hotel in Italy. He keeps bumping (literally) into his principessa Dora (Nicoletta Braschi). By staging an elaborate (and humourous!) series of events which make it appear as if the Virgin Mary herself is cooperating with him, Guido rescues Dora from marrying the stodgy town clerk. Life appears to be going fairly well for Guido even though Mussolini has just signed a pact with Hitler to implement his Nazi policies with regards to Jews. Flash forward five years later and we see Guido owning a bookstore he manages with his wife and son Giosué. It's almost the end of World War II, but that makes the position of Jewish-Italians all the more precipitous. One day, the Germans come to take away Guido and his son. His wife, not being Jewish, chooses to go along.

    Right from the start, Guido takes a huge risk by treating the whole exercise as a joke. He explains to his son that they've just bought tickets to take part in a contest to win a tank (not a toy one, but a real one, thought of which lights up Giosué's eyes) and proceeds to concoct an imaginative and humourous explanation for the happenings around, and to, them in the German concentration camp.

    All of the things Guido asks Giosué to do are in the interest of saving Giosué. However, given Guido's personality depicted in the first half of the film, I don't think he could've acted differently even if wanted to. While the first part of the movie illustrates Benigni's talents as a slapstick comedian, some of the best humour is in the German camp. Here, Guido is not only funny to his son (and the audience) but he must also eke out humour in situations where people's lives are stake. We see Guido making a joke out of a German officer's instructions to the prisoners---a situation where a misunderstanding on the part of the prisoner could lead to their deaths.

    Some may find this comparison sacrilegious, but Benigni reminds me of Jim Carrey in many respects. From his "performance" at the Oscars (climbing on chairs and rivalling Whoopi Goldberg in his one-liners), I assume Benigni very much lives his life the way he portrays Guido in Life is Beautiful, always cheerful, goofy, and smiling at and in the face of misfortune. Benigni's acting is terrific and believable. (As I write this, it's well-known that Life is Beautiful won the Oscar not only for Best Foreign Film, but Nicola Piovani won an Oscar for the Best Original Dramatic Score and Benigni won the Best Actor award.) The chemistry between Benigni and Braschi, who happens to Benigni's real-life wife, is excellent. The cinematography, the direction, and the pacing are all superb, except for the odd scene where Guido gets lost in the prison camp (which isn't that big) and stumbles across a pile of decaying corpses that have been through the gas showers. It is a jarring scene that simply does not fit in with the rest of the film.

    The movie has been criticised as an exercise in holocaust revisionism. In my view, the fantasy Benigni creates (and it is a fantasy) is done primarily to enable us to laugh at one of the most terrible atrocities to occur in human history.

    It's debatable how much children (or anyone) should be shielded from real-life horrors (I'm of the belief that it's generally better to know sooner than later), but in this fable, Guido's gamble (with a high risk) pays off. The emotional ending which made me cry is all the more powerful because up till the end, we do not know what is really going to happen. And given that most of the films I see comes out of Hollywood, I was shaking my head in disbelief long after the movie ended. This is the kind of a movie I've waited for a long time to be made and in my view deserved the Oscars for all the categories it was nominated for but didn't win. In so much as comparisons can be made, Life is Beautiful is a better picture than Shakespeare in Love and Benigni does a better job of direction than Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan.
  • lebby2010
    December 30, 2008
    lebby2010
    Not INto subtitles, thanks!
  • clarentia
    December 30, 2008
    clarentia
    Beautiful. Ironically beautiful.
  • Caitlynnnn
    December 29, 2008
    Caitlynnnn
    Even though it was in italian, that i couldn't understand, and even though it had subtitles, which i usually hate...this movie was just fantastic!!!
  • yantonisirait
    December 27, 2008
    yantonisirait
    great movie that i ever seen..must watch
  • stellar05
    December 23, 2008
    stellar05
    I've watched this movie when I was still 11 years old. I really had no idea what was the story behind it but my cousin forced me to watch. It was her treat. This was my first movie which I really watched even if I only understood it thru subtitles. It was shocking for myself that...( read more) I could understand the story even while reading the subtitles. What was more shocking was that I dragged my friends to watch it again. It's really a great movie. It really has a deep meaning to it. I love it~!
  • odettegaby
    December 18, 2008
    odettegaby
    it's the most beautiful movie tha i saw..
  • catarinabastos
    December 18, 2008
    catarinabastos
    Love, love love this movie

Summary

Life Is Beautiful (La Vita è bella) Summary