Life Is Beautiful (1997) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by cinéfila... 🕯️ ★★★★ 2

  me, looking at the title of this movie immediately after watching it: so that was a fucking lie

• Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★★ 27

  I'll never forget the first time that I saw this film, as it was the first film I'd ever seen to flat out wreck me emotionally, make me burst out into a fit of uncontrollable tears and lose complete command of my motor functions. The ending of the film, for me, is a flashbulb memory and always will be; as the sobs came spilling out and I, quite literally, fell off my bed and onto the floor, my (now deceased) father heard me wailing all the way from downstairs and came rushing up to my room, under the impression that something terrible might have happened.

  I can still, so vividly, recall the haste of my father's footsteps -- their speed…

• Review by 1smalldeath ★★★★½ 2

  Buongiorno, Principessa!

• Review by Two Cineasts ★★★★★ 11

  "To laugh and cry coms from the same point of the soul, no? I'm a storyteller: The crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry, it doesn't matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They're the same if you reach the beauty."
  (Roberto Benigni)

  CAN A COMEDY IN A HOLOCAUST SETTING ACTUALLY WORK? YES! FUNNY, ENTERTAINING, INTENSE AND DRAMATIC. THIS TRAGICOMEDY IS WITH ONE WORD: BEAUTIFUL

• Review by kayla ★★★★★ 5

  1. Everything sounds so much better in Italian
  2. I am crying

• Review by Andre de Nervaux ★★★★★

  There are tears all over my keyboard for fuck sake.

• Review by Sara Clements ★★★★

  My dad? Idk him. Guido is my father now.

• Review by amaya ★★ 7

  my mom told me this was a comedywtf

• Review by jeaba ★★★★★ 11

  so glad that this movie ends after one hour and nothing absolutely soul crushing happens

• Review by allain ★★★★★ 11

  This is a simple story… but not an easy one to tell.

  Life is Beautiful is a tragicomedy film that tells the story of a Jewish bookkeeper and how he navigated the atrocities of a Jewish concentration camp using wits and humor to protect his beloved son. When I first watched this film back in 2018, I asked the question, “why would anyone attempt to make a comedy film about a topic as sensitive as the Holocaust?” and it still made me uncomfortable because it’s not really a topic you should be making fun of, but the film isn’t all about that.

  The movie started as jolly and high-spirited as we’re introduced to the life of Guido pre-Nazi occupied Italy…

• Review by George Carmi ★★★★★ 11

  Oh my. My oh my.

  I was not in the right mental state to watch this beautiful piece of film-making. I am an absolute mess right now. No movie has broken me this much in a very long time.

  Very few films have ever left me speechless and I am genuinely struggling to articulate my thoughts right now while tears stream down my face and my hands tremble across this keyboard.

  Life is Beautiful is one of the most powerful films I have ever seen. Presented in an incredibly devastating way, this film touched on themes of innocence, human dignity, and the heartbreaking truth of reality. This film is dark, yet it is presented through the eyes of children. Those…

• Review by Esteban Gonzalez ★★★★★ 4

  “This is my story. This is the sacrifice my father made. This was his gift to me.”

  The film that introduced the world to the charming Italian actor, Roberto Benigni (perhaps not because they saw his actual movie, but for the way he accepted his Oscar for his performance in this film as he leaped through the seats of the actors that were attending the ceremony). This is my favorite foreign film because it manages to balance a wonderful story that begins as a romantic comedy and ends up being about the tragic events that took place during the holocaust. How could Benigni possibly pull something like this off? He’s telling a hopeful light hearted story in the midst of…