The Great Beauty

Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty (Italian: La grande bellezza) won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards in March 2014, the first Italian production to win the prize since Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful in 1999. It also won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, and the European Film Award for Best Film at the 26th ceremony. It is the most-decorated Italian art-cinema release of the 2010s.

The film draws on the long Italian tradition of Roman-society films (particularly Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) and Roma (1972)) with Sorrentino directly acknowledging the lineage in interviews. The lead, Toni Servillo, is Sorrentino's regular collaborator across nearly his entire filmography from One Man Up (2001) through Il Divo, The Consequences of Love, Loro and Parthenope; this is widely treated as Servillo's most internationally visible role and the apex of the partnership.

Cinematography is by Luca Bigazzi, also Sorrentino's longtime collaborator, working in 2.35:1 widescreen with extensive use of slow-tracking dolly and Steadicam moves through real Roman locations including the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, the Tempietto del Bramante, the Aventine Hill and the Castel Sant'Angelo. The score combines original work by Lele Marchitelli with extensive classical and contemporary cuts including Vladimir Martynov's Beatitudes, John Tavener's The Lamb and Henryk Górecki's Symphony No. 3. The film made Sorrentino's international career and led directly to Youth (2015), The Young Pope (2016) and his ongoing major productions.