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8½

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Italy, France · 1963
2h 19m
Director Federico Fellini
Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo
Genre Drama

A troubled Italian filmmaker struggles with a creative block as he attempts to release a new film. He retreats into his thoughts, which focus on his past and present, and frequently wander into fantastical territory. As he tries to sort out his many problems, he finds his production becoming more autobiographical.

Stream 8½

What are people saying?

Yasmeen Gaber Profile picture for Yasmeen Gaber

Many people will praise 8 1/2 for its success as meta-cinema or its psychoanalytic potential (both of which are more than well-founded claims that most people would support). However, what is often lost is that 8 1/2 is perhaps one of Fellini's funniest films. In examining himself through his subconscious, he makes fun of himself in deep and haunting ways (and leaves room for the odd gag). Even though this film is already immensely popular among critics and audiences alike, I still recommend it as a complex and surprising viewing experience.

What are critics saying?

80

The Guardian by

8 1/2 is probably the most potent movie about film-making, within which fantasy and reality are mixed without obfuscation, and there's a tough argument that belies Fellini's usual felicitous flaccidity.

88

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

If 8½ seems stuck in the early 1960s, it's only superficially so. Somehow, the movie is more than the dated crisis of a naval-contemplating artist. It's about the inability in all of us to make sense of our lives, put it all together and come up with something meaningful.

80

Washington Post by Hal Hinson

Never again was Fellini as successful as he was here in his use of film as a theater for soul-searching. Loaded with self-referential detail, 8 1/2 is the director's self-mocking chronicle of his inability to come up with a worthy subject for his next film.

90

Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum

It's Fellini's last black-and-white picture and conceivably the most gorgeous and inventive thing he ever did—certainly more fun than anything he made after it.

90

The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann

I don't think that 8 1/2 "says" very much, but it is breathtaking to watch. One doesn't come away from it as from, say, the best Bergman or Renoir-with a continuing, immanent experience; one has to think back to it and remember the effect. But that is easy, for the experience is unforgettable.

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