8 ½

Otto e mezzo

Dir. Federico Fellini

Italy, France 1963 | Black & white | 138 mins | Cert 15 | Drama

Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale

A film director who looks like Fellini tries to make a film but can’t, except that here is the result, Fellini’s roughly ‘eighth-and-a-half’ film. Convoluted and self-reflexive, 8½ comes on as the ultimate art-movie, but is above all an extraordinary evocation of unbearable restlessness finally giving way to the joy of going with the flow. 8½ was voted number three in the 2002 Sight & Sound Directors’ Poll of the Top Ten Best Films of all time.

Available on: 35mm