Roma

Fellini's Roma does not tell a story. The only character that develops across it is the city. Two sequences sum it up. The first is an ecclesiastical fashion show staged for a cardinal, with vestments, nuns on roller skates and an illuminated papal headpiece rolling past. The second is a subway excavation, where the crew breaks through to ancient Roman frescoes and the paintings fade in front of them the moment air reaches them. Everything Fellini is doing is in those two minutes. Anna Magnani appears at the end; the crew ran into her in the street during the shoot. It became one of her last screen appearances. It opened in Italy in March 1972, screened at Cannes and won the Technical Grand Prize. Italy submitted it for the Academy Awards without a nomination. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 67 percent. Roger Ebert wrote that Fellini had built a narrative with a city for its protagonist instead of a single character. Who it is for: viewers who love late Fellini and formal freedom. Who it is not for: anyone who wants a story to follow. The film is deliberately loose and several sections sit apart from the rest.