FILM: 8½

One of the most influential films of all time, Fellini’s shimmering self-portrait in a hall of mirrors retains the power to dazzle and delight.

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a film director struggling with creative block and a messy love life as he attempts to make an epic sci-fi movie.

Surrealist dream sequences, flashbacks and farcical predicaments collapse in on themselves as we follow Guido’s desperate quest for fulfilment. Shot in luminous black and white, it’s a masterclass in cinematic storytelling that repays endless viewings: visually stunning, darkly funny and, crucially, emotionally involving.

8½ is screened to complement Opera North’s performances of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, a co-production with Gothenburg Opera that relocates the action to a Fellini-esque Italian film studio.

“8½ is the best film ever made about filmmaking”
— Roger Ebert

“The most brilliant, varied, and entertaining movie since Citizen Kane”
— Dwight Macdonald