8½

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s (Otto e mezzo) turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. An early working title for was The Beautiful Confusion, and Fellini’s masterpiece is exactly that: a shimmering dream, a circus, and a magic act. Also featured is Fellini’s rarely seen first film for television, Fellini: A Director’s Notebook (1969). Produced by Peter Goldfarb, this “imagined documentary” of Fellini on Fellini is a kaleidoscope of unfinished projects, all of which provide a fascinating and candid window into the director’s unique creative process.

Film Info

  • Italy, France
  • 1963
  • 138 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.85:1
  • Italian
  • Spine #140

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Introduction by filmmaker Terry Gilliam
  • Audio commentary featuring film critics Gideon Bachmann and Antonio Monda
  • Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, a short film by Federico Fellini
  • The Last Sequence, a documentary on Fellini’s lost alternate ending for
  • Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert, a documentary about Fellini’s longtime composer
  • Interviews with actor Sandra Milo, filmmaker Lina Wertmüller, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro
  • Rare photographs from Bachmann’s collection
  • Gallery of behind-the-scenes and production photos
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Stephanie Zacharek

    New cover by Eric Skillman

Purchase Options

Coming soon, available Dec 10, 2024

Collector's Sets

Collector's Set

Essential Fellini

Essential Fellini

Blu-ray Box Set

15 Discs

$199.96

Collector's Set

CC40

CC40

Blu-ray Box Set

49 Discs

$639.96

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Introduction by filmmaker Terry Gilliam
  • Audio commentary featuring film critics Gideon Bachmann and Antonio Monda
  • Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, a short film by Federico Fellini
  • The Last Sequence, a documentary on Fellini’s lost alternate ending for
  • Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert, a documentary about Fellini’s longtime composer
  • Interviews with actor Sandra Milo, filmmaker Lina Wertmüller, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro
  • Rare photographs from Bachmann’s collection
  • Gallery of behind-the-scenes and production photos
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: An essay by film critic Stephanie Zacharek

    New cover by Eric Skillman
8½
Cast
Claudia Cardinale
Claudia
Anouk Aimée
Luisa Anselmi
Sandra Milo
Carla
Rossella Falk
Rossella
Barbara Steele
Gloria Morin
Jean Rougeul
Daumier
Eddra Gale
La Saraghina
Madeleine Lebeau
Actress
Caterina Boratto
Beautiful woman
Mario Pisu
Mario Mezzabotta
Guido Alberti
Pace, the producer
Annie Gorassini
Pace’s girlfriend
Tito Masini
Cardinal
Ian Dallas
Maurice
Mary Indovino
Maya
Annibale Ninchi
Guido’s father
Giuditta Rissone
Guido’s mother
Georgia Simmons
Guido’s grandmother
Maria Raimondi
Nanny in white
Marisa Colomber
Nanny in black
Roberta Valli
Young girl at farmhouse
Riccardo Guglielmi
Guido at farmhouse
Marco Gemini
Guido as a schoolboy
Yvonne Casadei
Jacqueline Bonbon
Elisabetta Catalano
Luisa’s sister
Mark Herron
Enrico
Mario Conocchia
Conocchia
Cesarino Miceli Picardi
Cesarino
Eva Gioia
Cesarino’s “niece”
Dina De Santis
Cesarino’s “niece”
Bruno Agostini
Bruno Agostini
Hazel Rogers
Black dancer
Hedy Vessel
Hedy, the model
Roberto Nicolosi
Doctor
Eugene Walter
American journalist
Gilda Dahlberg
American journalist’s wife
Mino Doro
Claudia’s agent
Mario Tarchetti
Claudia’s press agent
Credits
Director
Federico Fellini
Produced by
Angelo Rizzoli
Story by
Federico Fellini
Story by
Ennio Flaiano
Screenplay by
Federico Fellini
Screenplay by
Tullio Pinelli
Screenplay by
Ennio Flaiano
Screenplay by
Brunello Rondi
Cinematography
Gianni di Venanzo
Cameraman
Pasquale de Santis
Assistant cameraman
Tazio Secchiaroli
Art director
Piero Gherardi
Music
Nino Rota
Sound
Mario Faraoni
Sound
Alberto Bartolomei
Editor
Leo Catozzo
Production supervisor
Clemente Fracassi
Production director
Nello Meniconi

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Federico Fellini

Writer, Director

Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini

One of Italy’s great modern directors, Federico Fellini was a larger-than-life maestro who created an inimitable cinematic style combining surreal carnival with incisive social critique. While his most popular—and accessible—film, the darkly nostalgic childhood memoir Amarcord, is a great entryway into his oeuvre, , a collage of memories, dreams, and fantasies about a director’s artistic crisis, is perhaps his masterpiece. In his early career, Fellini was both a screenwriter for neorealist pioneer Roberto Rossellini and a newspaper caricaturist in postwar Rome, competing influences he would bring together with startling results. After such early works as I vitelloni, Fellini broke away from neorealism’s political strictures with the beloved La strada, and from there boldly explored his obsessions with the circus, societal decadence, spiritual redemption, and, most controversially, women, in such films as Nights of Cabiria, Juliet of the Spirits, and And the Ship Sails On.