Il Divo

Giulio Andreotti was prime minister of Italy seven times, sat in ten cabinets and stood trial over alleged mafia ties. Paolo Sorrentino shoots him less like a biographical subject than like a ghost: hunched, quiet, unreacting, the man taking up the least space in the room and controlling all of it. Toni Servillo carries the part with almost no facial movement. The prosthetics matter so much that the film was nominated for Best Makeup at the 82nd Academy Awards. Sorrentino's camera does the opposite of the performance, restless and loud and constantly colliding with music. It won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2008. Andreotti attended a screening and walked out, dismissing it as excessive, then later joked that he was pleased for the producer given how it was doing. Against a 6.7 million dollar budget it grossed 11.2 million worldwide. Who it is for: viewers drawn to the dark end of Italian politics and to formal daring. Who it is not for: anyone who needs to know who everyone is. The film fires names and events at you and waits for nobody.