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Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée, Sandra Milo, Rossella Falk ... see more see more... , Barbara Steele , Mario Pisu , Neil Robinson , Mino Doro , Madeleine Le Beau , Eugene Walter , Gilda Dahlberg , Annie Gorassini , Ian Dallas , Guido Alberti , Mario Conocchia , Cesarino Miceli Picardi , John Stacy , Mark Herron , Rosellin Como , Matilda Calnan , Eddra Gale , Georgia Simmons , Edy Vessel , Annibale Ninchi , Giuditta Rissone , Caterina Boratto , Olimpia Cavalli , Tito Massini , Jérôme Polidor , Jean Rougeul , Dina De Santis , Maria Antonietta Beluzzi

Fresh off of the international success of La Dolce Vita, master director Federico Fellini moved into the realm of self-reflexive autobiography with what is widely believed to be his finest and most pe... read more read more...rsonal work. Marcello Mastroianni delivers a brilliant performance as Fellini's alter ego Guido Anselmi, a film director overwhelmed by the large-scale production he has undertaken. He finds himself harangued by producers, his wife, and his mistress while he struggles to find the inspiration to finish his film. The stress plunges Guido into an interior world where fantasy and memory impinge on reality. Fellini jumbles narrative logic by freely cutting from flashbacks to dream sequences to the present until it becomes impossible to pry them apart, creating both a psychological portrait of Guido's interior world and the surrealistic, circus-like exterior world that came to be known as "Felliniesque." 8 1/2 won an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, as well as the grand prize at the Moscow Film Festival, and was one of the most influential and commercially successful European art movies of the 1960s, inspiring such later films as Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and even Lucio Fulci's Italian splatter film Un Gatto nel Cervello (1990). ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

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92% liked it

41,060 ratings

Critics

97% liked it

36 critics

Unrated, 2 hr. 15 min.

Directed by: Federico Fellini

Release Date: June 25, 1963

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DVD Release Date: December 4, 2001

Stats: 2,758 reviews

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8 1/2 - Polish poster Fellini Dream Sequence Claudia Mastroianni and Sandra Milo 8 1/2 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo 8 1/2 8 1/2 Sandra Milo as 'the other woman' in 8 1/2 8 1/2 8 1/2 Mastroianni and Fellini guido Poster 8 1/2 8 1/2 Aimée as Luisa in '8 1/2'
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Flixster Reviews (2,758)

  • fb791220692
    April 18, 2012
    fb791220692
    Like the troubled director at the core of the story, and the actual director, 8 1/2 kind of roams aimlessly for a long time. Yet, when it finally tells us something, it does so with a type of profound insight that all filmmakers would aspire to.
  • spielberg00
    December 27, 2011
    spielberg00
    To say that 8 1/2 is a biopic would be only part of the truth. The film is, in fact, an autobiography of Guido Anselmi, the alter ego of the film's own director and screenwriter. The crucially notable fantasy twist, therefore, must tell the viewer one of two things: either Fell... read moreini was taking a leap of faith, or he is simply losing his mind. In this case, it happens to be both. Though Federico Fellini was clearly blending the biopic genre with the fantasy genre and praying for something astounding, we get a good view of his mentality from a good portion of the film. With the fashion in which Fellini presents various flashbacks and dreams, the word "psychedelic" barely begins to serve as the correct word for his strange (but irresistible) thought process. Furthermore, it is quite likely the English language does not own such a word or phrase.

    Full Review: http://wp.me/p1Urcx-zY
  • blkbomb
    October 28, 2011
    blkbomb
    Guido: All the confusion of my life... has been a reflection of myself! Myself as I am, not as I'd like to be. 

    "A picture that goes beyond what men think about- because no man ever thought about it in quite this way."

    8 1/2 may just be the most perfect film I have seen. Fellin... read morei gives us a based somewhat on him, director named Guido(magnificently played by Marcello Mastroianni). This director is being hassled by everyone in his life. He deals with two relationships, one with his wife and one with his lover, and the repercussions of his sexual desires. He is hounded by produces and writers to get moving on his next film, but he doesn't know what to do. So he escapes at various times throughout the film, into his fantasies.

    Some of these fantasy sequences are easy to spot, some a bit harder. Some are realistic, some are not. But these fantasy scenes are simply brilliant and amazing. I for one absolutely loved where he was in a fantasy with all the women of his fantasies. He talked to them and sent them "upstairs" because they reached a specific age which he deemed to old. With today's lingo, we basically go into Guido's spankbank.

    I haven't seen that many Federico Fellini films, but the ones I have seen I have loved. None more so than 8 1/2. I can see this movie being very hard for some people to sit through because virtually nothing happens. We watch a man struggle in the real world and resort to fantasies of women he lost and childhood memories of guilt. This isn't meant as pure entertainment. It isn't going to have you waiting with bated breath for what happens next and it probably isn't going to excite in the least. 

    But for the viewer who loves these type of films(films that dive more into a character's thoughts, guilt and struggles, then into a plot), I couldn't think of a better movie. What this movie really makes me want to do is watch every Fellini film right now just to make sure this is his best, because if it isn't there's a movie out there that is basically going to change my life. 

    I have to talk about Marcello Mastroianni's performance. This was easily the most insightful and vivid performance I have ever seen from an actor. I'm not going to say it is the best performance by an actor ever(it is definitely up there) because I don't know how'd that would even be judged, but it is one of my personal favorites.

    The best thing about this is that the next time I watch it, I probably appreciate it even more because it will be a lot easier to follow and I will pick up on a lot more. 

    Guido: My Dears... Happiness consists of being able to tell the truth without hurting anyone. 
  • MidnightMadwoman
    October 7, 2011
    MidnightMadwoman
    Oof. It's hard to know what to make of this movie. It's got extremely severe pacing problems, and just when you think that the film has run out of steam, it starts cannibalizing itself. It would seem that Frederico Fellini lives vicariously through a character named Guido, a dire... read morector of art films who inside a maze of his own making, peopled with women and made of indecision. He spends his life chasing a dream through his maze, and trying to nail it down to celluloid. He chooses to roll around in his sticky tangled web instead of extricating himself from it. 8 1/2 is a cool little Mobius strip of a movie, but I kind of started losing interest before it flipped over and culminated. The language barrier also made it a little hard for me to follow. This film is full of high, lifty ideas, but has too much navel-gazing introspection and to few engaging characters to make it worth the trip.
  • matertenebraum
    February 10, 2011
    matertenebraum
    This is the greatest movie ever made. Oh, but there's no shooting, no fighting, no car chases. No 800 years old frogs, no light sabres, although people do fly! Instead, there is an artist and his fickle imagination, struggle with the lack of inspiration and the creative process, ... read morewhich remains a mystery. Fellini said that all his life he was making Lo sceico bianco (his first film). I think he was wrong. All his life he made Otto é mezzo. All his early movies were rehearsals to this tour de force and subsequently he developed themes from 8 1/2. La cittá delle donne, develops Guido's dream, Amarcord - the Saragina scene, Casanova the futility of Guido's love affairs, Giulietta - Guido's wife etc. This is movie making at its best.
  • ajv2688
    November 24, 2010
    ajv2688
    I absolutely love this movie! It's brilliantly directed, acted, and shot. The story is perfect, I love it. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who is a true movie buff or a filmmaker.
  • neverteaseaweasel
    June 24, 2010
    neverteaseaweasel
    So, being a sort of cinema ignoramus of anything created before say 2006, I had never heard of 8 1/2 until Rob Marshall's Nine was released. This probably is not surprising news to anyone, but the original is hands down the better of the two films. Fellini's film focuses far more... read more on Guido than on the women in his life. It's also straightforeward in the storytelling. The story itself is infused with more emotion and meaning than Marshall's film and also does not feel quite as contrived. Both are great films, but I really feel that Fellini's is better. The whole thing has a really surreal, dreamlike quality. I loved the visual style, and, really, pretty much everything else about it. A lot of films, even if they are good, are forgotten as soon as the credits role. This is not the case with 8 1/2. It is a poignant, breathtaking endeavour that will forever linger in the memory and soul.
  • dreamfaeries
    May 5, 2010
    dreamfaeries
    Didn't really capture my attention, so I kind of just blazed through it.
  • bottcorecords1
    March 13, 2010
    bottcorecords1
    Watching Federico Fellini's "8 1/2" is a bit like watching a Mozart opera: the uninitiated might possibly find it confusing, pretentious or overly demanding, whereas those with a little more patience will enjoy the complexity and whimsy even, of the characters as they move throug... read moreh the story. The story revolves around a film director who's resting at a spa retreat, attempting to recuperate from an undisclosed illness (perhaps a nervous breakdown?), but is never afforded the opportunity to relax, as he's bombarded by demands from producers, actors and writers to begin work on his next project, which no one seems to know what it is. The director is not unlike Fellini himself, he uses surrealism to create imagery his detractors often dismiss as nonsensical. Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) doesn't know what kind of film he wants to create, he seems to be suffering from a creative block. He can only imagine the images he wants to use, and many of these come directly from his childhood memories. And yet he sends his crew and backers on wild goose chases, having them build enormously expensive sets for space ships and such. The film in his head has nothing to do with what he's making the people around him work on. At times, the whole thing borders on farce. Fellini plays with reality and fantasy, weaving in and out of both so effortlessly. There's nothing obnoxious about the film, nor is it too heavy handed with metaphor. In fact, the whole thing is clever and witty. The director Guido is trying to create a film about truth, and his own bias obviously prevents such a thing from happening. While this isn't a difficult film to understand, it's a difficult film to digest, requiring more than one viewing to catch on the details possibly missed on the first viewing.
  • FilmFanatik
    March 5, 2010
    FilmFanatik
    There are times when I enjoyed this and there were times when I was yawning. I might have to see this more than once to really appreciate it. I agree with some of the other comments though that there is absolutely TOO MUCH dialogue in this and gets old really really fast.

View All 8 1/2 Reviews

Critic Reviews

April 27, 2009
TIME Magazine

Unless Fellini's problem has been preying on the mind of the viewer, he may not care to take on the director's doubts and confusions. Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum
July 9, 2007
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

It's Fellini's last black-and-white picture and conceivably the most gorgeous and inventive thing he ever did. Full Review

Variety Staff
July 9, 2007
Variety Staff, Variety

Here is the author-director picture par excellence, an exciting, stimulating, monumental creation. Full Review

Bosley Crowther
May 20, 2003
Bosley Crowther, New York Times

Here is a piece of entertainment that will really make you sit up straight and think, a movie endowed with the challenge of a fascinating intellectual game. Full Review

Desson Thomson
January 1, 2000
Desson Thomson, Washington Post

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 meani... Full Review

Hal Hinson
January 1, 2000
Hal Hinson, Washington Post

[Fellini] is that rare sort of artist who can be loved, revered and just barely tolerated, all at the same time. Full Review

J. Hoberman
January 1, 2000
J. Hoberman, Village Voice

The ensuing decades have brought forth a deluge of bogus masterpieces, and Fellini's, by comparison, holds up rather well. Full Review

Peter Rainer
January 1, 2000
Peter Rainer, New York Magazine

Its opening [has] perhaps the greatest dream scene of all: Marcello Mastroianni's Guido stifled in a silent traffic jam, onlookers gazing blankly at him as he rises through the sunroof of his car, hig... Full Review

Roger Ebert
January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

8 1/2 is the best film ever made about filmmaking. Full Review

Matthew Pejkovic
July 6, 2010
Matthew Pejkovic, Matt's Movie Reviews

A marvellous and immensely personal piece of self analysis, which journeys into the heart, mind and soul of its illustrious director, Frederico Fellini. Full Review

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  • She plays Guido's (Marcello Mastroianni) wife in Fellini's "8 1/2":  Answer »
  • What was Lisa's shoe size in the movie "Wicker Park"?  Answer »
  • in what movie was their a family with 12 kids competing agance a family with 8 kids.  Answer »
  • The film director Guido Anselmi is the main character of which film?  Answer »
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