So this is the second Fellini on the list, after 8 1/2. It’s not much like that movie in the particulars, but it’s got a lot of the same feel to it, the kind of aimless ennui amidst glamour and decadence.

The main character here (who is the same actor as in 8 1/2, Marcello Mastroianni) is a celebrity gossip reporter, and the movie follows him around in various episodes — with a drunk Swedish actress, with a sad socialite, with his angry despairing girlfriend, in the countryside reporting on a sighting of the Madonna, at a rather sad “orgy” — as he kind of drifts through the film aimless and discontent.

And really, that’s where the power of the movie comes from, the disconnect between the obvious glamour of all these scenes — ancient Italian castles full of Renaissance art, salons of the bright and beautiful, a nightclub in Rome full of movie stars; everyone stylish and attractive — and the emotional hollowness and deep unhappiness of all the characters.

And yeah, that’s a bit cliche — that’s like, every movie about rich people ever, right; and not a few books, at that — but it works pretty well here. (Assuming you can get past the standard mid-century domestic violence, misogyny, and racism, of course.)