The Great Beauty

Jep Gambardella has spent decades weaving through Rome's opulent nightlife, charming revelers and scribes with a silver tongue and a legendary party circuit. On reaching his 65th birthday, a jolt from the past unsettles his view of the city and its glittering circles. He begins to pull away from the endless clubs and social masquerades, seeking something truer beneath the surface. The film follows him through sunlit terraces, midnight bacchanals, and quiet corners where memory and art rub elbows with decay. In this reevaluation, Jep encounters figures from his long life and confronts the gap between fame and meaning, artifice and authenticity. The result is a meditation on beauty that feels both intimate and metropolitan. And the city tempts him.

Released in 2013, the film was directed by Paolo Sorrentino with a screenplay by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello. It is not drawn from a novel, but built around Rome's elite scene and the sensibility of artists for audiences worldwide today.

It grossed about 24.93 million worldwide on a 9.2 million budget, signaling a solid commercial reception for a film that plays to art house audiences. Its broad international release helped attract cinephiles and casual viewers alike across many major markets.

Critics highlighted its lush, painterly depictions of Rome and its patient, contemplative pace. The Great Beauty became a benchmark for Sorrentino's style and sparked ongoing conversations about the allure and hollowness of high society, memory's role in art, and the search for meaning, even as the city hums around it.

Audiences and critics alike praised Toni Servillo's performance as Jep Gambardella and the film's orchestration of humor, wistfulness, and spectacle. Its themes circle aging and legacy, the tension between celebrity and sincerity, and the beautiful ache of moments slipping away, lingering in memory long after the credits roll for many.