Federico Fellini

Italian filmmaker (1920–1993)

Fame81.8
Momentum9.5
Italy rank#20

Source-basedRising

Fame81.8
Momentum9.5
Italy rank#20
Directors rank#5
Wikipedia94.5K

Lived 1920–1993, aged 73Italy

Italy DirectorsMovie Director

Wikipedia
131 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Italy
#20
Directors
Era
1920–1993
Aged 73
Known for
8½
1963

Summary

Updated 2026-08-14

His films—baroque dreamscapes where circus freaks, priests, and movie stars collide—made him the poet of postwar Italian disillusionment and the director whose vision critics still rank among cinema's two or three finest.

Biography

About

Born in 1920, Fellini started as a screenwriter before directing I Vitelloni in 1953, then La Strada in 1954—early work that mixed realism with something stranger. La Dolce Vita took the Palme d'Or in 1960 and made him famous for capturing Rome's hollow glamour. 8½ followed in 1963, a spiral into a director's creative paralysis that Sight & Sound would later call the tenth-greatest film ever made. He kept going—Amarcord, Fellini Satyricon, Casanova—piling up four competitive Oscars (a record in the foreign-language category) and another seventeen nominations. By the time the Academy gave him t…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini

saidJun 1991

What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one...

— "Every Time We Say Goodbye" in Sight and Sound [London] ( June 1991)

Federico Fellini

said1984

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another.

— As quoted in Rolling Stone no. 421 (1984)

Federico Fellini

said1976

There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.

— Fellini on Fellini (1976) edited by Anna Keel and Christian Strich; translated by Isabel Quigly.

Federico Fellini

said1976

Cinéma-vérité? I prefer 'cine-mendacity'. A lie is always more interesting than the truth...Fiction may have a greater truth than everyday, obvious reality.

— Fellini on Fellini (1976) edited by Anna Keel and Christian Strich; translated by Isabel Quigly.

Federico Fellini

saidDec 1965