Marcello Mastroianni: 10 essential films

‘The King of Europe’ – this is how actor Faye Dunaway describes him in the recent HBO documentary on her life and career, Faye (2024). The man she’s talking about – her former partner Marcello Mastroianni – would undoubtedly have shrugged off this kind of (affectionate) hyperbole, just as he would roll his eyes when the press continued to refer to him as Italy’s ‘Latin lover’ in the wake of his starring role as an elegantly jaded journalist in Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita (1960). 

After some minor film appearances in his youth, Mastroianni came of age as an actor in the theatre under the exacting mentorship of Luchino Visconti in the late 1940s. He soon found, however, that the more playful, less rigorous surroundings of cinema were more suited to his sensibility. In a 50-year career, he would maintain a sense of perspective about the actor’s role in the filmmaking process. For Mastroianni, the film actor should certainly be prepared and committed to their craft, but, ultimately, they should always put themselves at the service of the director. It was this attitude that made him appeal again and again to many of the world’s greatest filmmakers – Fellini, of course, but dozens more, in Italy and beyond.

Director: Mario Monicelli

One of Jacques Tati’s favourite films, this Rome-set caper tells of a group of small-time criminals planning the perfect heist. Mastroianni plays one of the gang, a photographer who’s been left – quite literally – holding the baby while his wife serves a short prison sentence. Also featuring early roles for future stars of Italian cinema Vittorio Gassman and Claudia Cardinale, Mario Monicelli’s film was key in launching the so-called ‘Comedy Italian Style’, a rich cycle of social satires which Mastroianni would dip back into frequently in the 1960s and 70s. Remakes of Big Deal on Madonna Street include Louis Malle’s Crackers (1984) and the Russo brothers’ Welcome to Collinwood (2002).

Director: Federico Fellini

Of the dozens of notable titles in his filmography, Mastroianni is still best known for two films he made with Fellini in the early 1960s beginning with the bittersweet widescreen epic of Roman glamour La dolce vita. The actor frequently noted that when he and Fellini got together for a new project it was like two schoolboys being sent out to play, and this contrasted sharply with the more formal teacher-pupil relationship he had with Visconti. Both Mastroianni and Fellini had tasted success in their previous work in the 1950s, but La dolce vita propelled them both to international stardom.

Director: Pietro Germi

With divorce still a legal impossibility, a wily Sicilian aristocrat (Mastroianni) tries all manner of schemes to rid himself of his wife (Daniela Rocca) so he can sail off into the sunset with his cousin (Stefania Sandrelli). Director Pietro Germi initially had reservations about casting Mastroianni, having bought into the ‘Latin lover’ image and fearing he would be some kind of aloof playboy. He soon found that the actor was anything but, and that he was more than willing to poke fun at Italian machismo. The film features a masterful use of first-person voice-over, and it went on to win an Oscar for best screenplay in 1963.

Director: Valerio Zurlini

Valerio Zurlini’s drama explores the complex relationship between journalist Enrico (Mastroianni) and his estranged younger sibling Lorenzo (Jacques Perrin). Adapted from a 1947 novel – which its author Vasco Pratolini described as “a form of conversation between the author and his dead brother” – Family Diary features one of Mastroianni’s most affecting post-La dolce vita roles, set against the backdrop of an eerily quiet Florentine cityscape (Zurlini often talked about the work of painter Ottone Rosai as a visual reference point). The film went on to share the top prize at the 1962 Venice Film Festival with Andrei Tarkovsky’s debut feature, Ivan’s Childhood.

Director: Mario Monicelli

Late 19th-century Turin is the setting for Monicelli’s tale of a mercurial labour activist on the run from the authorities who looks to improve conditions for workers at a textile factory. Written with Mastroianni very much in mind for the lead role of Professor Sinigaglia, the film – like the actor’s earlier collaboration with Monicelli on Big Deal on Madonna Street – finds humour in the kind of characters whose reach agonisingly exceeds their grasp. The role was particularly dear to Mastroianni, so he was always pleasantly surprised when he encountered fans who would mention this title rather than one of his more widely celebrated pictures.

Director: Federico Fellini

While La dolce vita satirised the circus of cinema and celebrity from the outside, 8 ½ turned the focus inward to explore the anxieties of filmmaker Guido Anselmi (Mastroianni) as he juggles the demands of his personal and professional life. Moving back and forth in time, blending reality and fantasy, 8 ½ went on to influence scores of filmmakers, from Terry Gilliam to Paolo Sorrentino. Mastroianni would remain an important part of Fellini’s filmography, returning to star in City of Women (1980), Ginger and Fred (1986) and Intervista (1987).

Director: Elio Petri

Sporting a black suit, sunglasses and a striking short blond cut, Mastroianni stars opposite Ursula Andress in Elio Petri’s futuristic pop-art satire. Based on a story by Robert Sheckley, the film tells of ‘The Big Hunt’, a televised international competition in which contestants alternate between ‘hunters’ and ‘victims’ with the promise of a million-dollar prize for the winner. Director Petri is best known for his political thrillers, such as the Oscar-winning Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) and Todo modo (1976). In the latter, Mastroianni plays a sinister priest who leads a retreat for a group of political and business leaders.

Director: Ettore Scola

Once again subverting his ‘Latin lover’ image, Mastroianni plays a married, middle-aged Roman bricklayer, Oreste, who falls for exuberant florist Adelaide (Monica Vitti) in this bold, inventive comic drama, the first of several pictures he made with director Ettore Scola. Mastroianni and Vitti squeeze every last drop from the unashamedly melodramatic plot, which involves Oreste and Adelaide in a volatile love triangle with fresh-faced pizzaiolo Nello (Giancarlo Giannini). Mastroianni’s other work with Scola includes films opposite Neapolitan icons Sophia Loren (1977’s A Special Day) and Massimo Troisi (Splendor, and What Time Is It?, both 1989)

Director: Theo Angelopoulos

Director Theo Angelopoulos thought that Mastroianni was ‘too handsome’ to play the title role in his austere 1986 road movie but later admitted that he only really knew him from Italian comedies or from his films with Fellini. He was pleasantly surprised by Mastroianni’s emotional response to the screenplay and ended up offering him the part. It would turn out to be one of the actor’s most restrained, melancholy late performances – the first 15 minutes alone are as quietly devastating as anything in his filmography. Angelopoulos would cast him again in 1991’s The Suspended Step of the Stork, reuniting him with Jeanne Moreau, his co-star in Michelangelo Antonioni’s La notte (1961).

Director: Roberto Faenza

In the 1980s and 90s, Mastroianni made films around the world, from Brazil to the Soviet Union, Portugal to Greece. He also made a belated foray into Hollywood filmmaking with Beeban Kidron’s Used People (1992) and Robert Altman’s Prêt-a-Porter (1994). Set in 1930s Portugal, Roberto Faenza’s adaptation of Antonio Tabucchi’s novel centres on an ageing journalist (Mastroianni) whose encounter with a younger man and his girlfriend changes his previously indifferent attitude to Salazar’s authoritarian regime. Mastroianni’s love for the original novel and enthusiasm for its central character spurred him on to complete the film despite ill health.