Life Is Beautiful

Pros: Excellent acting, intelligent writing, brilliant humor, engaging dialogue.
Cons: Rapid dialogue makes for speed reading at times.

Life Is Beautiful was released in 1997 (as La Vita e Bella), but I could just as easily have been convinced that this film was released in 1967.  The film has a throwback quality that gave it the same flavor as some of the great films ...

Pros: Benigni, his performance, his cast, his movie!
Cons: Nothing, unless you can't cry at movies

Despite the fact that there are already close to 200 reviews on site on this movie , I couldn’t watch it without adding my voice to the choir of its praises. I have to say I think it one of the best movies ever made, in any genre by anyone, ever. It...

Pros: beautiful story about the power of love
Cons: the fact that the Holocaust actually happened

When I was a senior in high school, I recall many of my teachers referencing this movie and suggesting that all of us see it. The chaperones on my February trip to the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C., were especially emphatic in their praise of...

Pros: Roberto Benigni's performance, the story
Cons: not much emphasis on the concentration camps or realism in that regard

It's been several years since this movie has come out (1997) and it was only recently that I had the opportunity to watch it. My preconceived notions of the movie when it was originally aired in the theaters was that it was almost a joke. At the time,...

Pros: Great script, a movie that will draw in all your emotions
Cons: Benigni overacts a bit too much sometimes

This film had actually been out over a year and a half before people started noticing it. Its a foreign film (italian) and it's often harder to make a conversion to popularity in a foreign land. American films are well recieved in foreign countries yet...

Pros: Laughter and tears blend in a tale of courage and unconditional love.
Cons: Some say Benigni trivialized the concentration camp experience--but I disagree.

Pros: You'll Laugh, You'll Cry.
Cons: Movie Changes Drastically After the First Half

In the last few years I have really grown to dislike American cinema. Everything released lately has been done time and time again; diversity is really hard to find in any genre in modern days. This is why I simply try to pass over pretty much every Ameri ...

Pros: Benigni (if you like him), great cinematography, fine musical score, humor, and powerfully poignant story
Cons: Benigni (if you find his style irritating)

Let me start right out by saying that I like this film a lot. On my list of all time favorite non-English language films (see my topic discussion at Non -English Language Films that pack a wallop.), I have it ranked ...

Pros: Beautifully written and directed
Cons: None

Life WAS beautiful for Guido Orefice before he was taken to a concentration camp with his little son. His wife ended up there too when she couldn't bear for them to be taken without her.

Before that, he was a beguilingly sweet man who won...

Pros: Benigni's performance and direction, edgy content, humor
Cons: Mixing humor and holocaust is going to turn some heads

My girlfriend just had me watch this and I must say that I was initially hesitant not only due to the Academy Award garbage all over the front of the case, but that it looked really overrated to me. An Italian family getting caught in the ...

Pros: Very Entertaining Movie
Cons: Subtitles

When I first heard of this movie, I thought I would like it. It got so many awards for something, right? When I started watching Life Is Beautiful, I thought it was boring. Nothing exciting happened..yet. Although, everything is mostly subtle and nothing...

Pros: Benigni's physical humour, the tenderness which is displayed without self-consciousness, the warm feeling one gets from the ending.
Cons: None.

'Bella' means 'beautiful' in Italian, and this movie is just that.Yes, it is a Holocaust movie, and while I don't usually watch movies about the Holocaust as I find them too upsetting, this one is unique. This movie should be required watching for...

Pros: a great love story
Cons: - - -

You know it’s a strange movie that can make you laugh and cry at exactly the same moment. ‘Life is Beautiful’ is such a movie, as my wife proved the other night when we watched it on video! The movie the Chicago Tribune called “A Modern Masterpiece”,...

Pros: One of the finest pieces of cinema of the modern age; Inspired performances
Cons: The end came abruptly...but maybe I just didn't want it to end.

I first saw Roberto Benigni in a low-budget Italian comedy entitled "Johnny Stecchino," or, in English, "Johnny Toothpick." It was a classic mistaken-identity comedy of errors as only Benigni, a modern-day Keystone Cop could deliver.

When...

Pros: Beautiful story, well cast actors, great message to live by.
Cons: None.

Life is Beautiful (La Vita č bella)
Year of Release: 1997
Directed by: Roberto Benigni
Genre: Comedy/Romance/War
Category: Foreign Film
Runtime: 118 min
Label: Buena Vista...