Life Is Beautiful (1997)

I've seen Life Is Beautiful multiple times now and it just keeps getting better. the child's perspective is something rarely matched in cinema. If you haven't watched it yet, clear your evening.

Life Is Beautiful has been praised so heavily that no film could live up to the hype completely. It's an excellent film — Nicola Piovani's music is genuinely remarkable — but it's not the untouchable masterpiece some claim.

We watched Life Is Beautiful together and spent an hour talking about imagination vs reality afterward. That kind of conversation doesn't happen often. The film gives you something real to think about together.

Every choice in Life Is Beautiful feels deliberate. The framing, the pacing, the game rules speech in the barracks — Roberto Benigni is operating at a level most filmmakers never reach. It's the kind of film you study rather than just watch.