Movie · 1972 · Comedy, Romance · 2h 18m · R · English
Curator score: 5.6/10 (23.5K ratings)
When someone knocks on your door and says permesso?... be careful before you say Avanti!
Overview
A successful businessman travels to Italy to arrange for the return of his tycoon father's body, only to learn that dear old dad died with his longtime mistress.
Ratings
Curator score: 5.6/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Letterboxd: 3.58/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 79%
TMDB: 6.9/10
Director
Billy Wilder
Production
The Mirisch Company, United Artists, Jalem Productions, Phalanx Productions, PEA
Cast
Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill, Edward Andrews, Gianfranco Barra, Franco Angrisano, Pippo Franco, Franco Acampora, Giselda Castrini, Raffaele Mottola, Lino Coletta, Harry Ray, Guidarino Guidi, Giacomo Rizzo, Antonino Faà di Bruno, Yanti Somer, Janet Ågren, María Rosa Sclauzero, Melù Valente, Aldo Rendine
Where to watch
fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo
Curator Review
Verdict
A warm, offbeat late-period Billy Wilder comedy that blends romance, grief, and culture-clash wit with unusual tenderness. Its leisurely pace and adult, bittersweet tone won’t suit everyone, but the chemistry, location work, and dry comic intelligence make it rewarding.
Best for
Billy Wilder fans
viewers who like romantic comedies with melancholy undercurrents
fans of Jack Lemmon's exasperated everyman persona
people who enjoy European travel comedies and culture-clash humor
audiences open to slower, talky character comedy
Skip if
you want a fast, joke-dense farce
you dislike older comedies with some body-shaming and dated gender attitudes
you prefer romance without grief or family baggage
you need high-energy plotting or big set pieces
Overview
Avanti! is one of Billy Wilder’s gentlest films, but it still has his bite. What begins as a business trip to recover a body turns into a wry meditation on inheritance, desire, and the absurd rules people build around love and respectability. Wilder lets the comedy breathe, and the result is less manic than his classics, more sunlit and rueful.
Worth noting
Jack Lemmon is perfectly cast as a harried American who keeps colliding with Italian rhythms, while Juliet Mills gives the film its emotional and sensual center. The movie’s pleasures are in the details: the bureaucratic absurdity, the seaside atmosphere, the long conversations that slowly reveal how much everyone is hiding from themselves.
Bottom line
It’s not a broad crowd-pleaser, and some of the humor lands as very of its era. But if you like romantic comedies that feel lived-in, slightly mournful, and unexpectedly tender, this is a lovely one to discover.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Timcop (4.5★) · 388 likes
She's really not fat at all.
Mike D'Angelo (5★) · 218 likes
97/100
And then sometimes you just fall in love with a movie. Happened to me here during the morgue sequence, which is both surpassingly lovely—even the coroner's precise routine involving the paperwork somehow transcends its ostensible purpose as comic relief, taking on a melancholy dignity—and grotesquely acrid, culminating in one of the only lines of dialogue I can think of that provoked an audible gasp from me: "Ask fatass if she wants a ride." (I could write an entire lengthy… more
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (3★) · 147 likes
Action! - Three Auteurs: The Witty and Eclectic Mr. Wilder
With the help of the always magnetic Lemmon and a script that can't help but win you over, Billy Wilder brings his brand of romantic comedy to Italy. The director shoot the picture in color while using soft, glossy lighting and camerawork to create the feeling of being in a romantic dream.
The onscreen connection between Jack and Juliet is obvious almost immediately upon their introduction and is a major… more
theriverjordan (4.5★) · 137 likes
Grumpy old men and Americans experiencing European culture shock. Billy Wilder is in the peak of his late career elements with “Avanti!”.
And this time - the legendary screenwriter gets to write himself a happy ending of sorts. That is; it’s the 70s, and he at last gets to put some proper tits and bums in a motion picture.
And no, Jack Lemmon does not escape Italy without first bearing his own beachfront full moon.
“Avanti!,” releasing around a decade… more
Dave Edwards (3★) · 122 likes
Biggest surprises in the history of cinema: 1. “My sister, my daughter” — Chinatown (1974)2. The fate of Marion Crane — Psycho (1960)3. “What’s in the box?!?!” — Se7en (1995)4. “No, I am your father” — Empire Strikes Back (1980)5. Seeing Jack Lemon’s lily-white dad ass*, not once but twice — Avanti (1972)
*the only way I could have been more surprised is if it had been Walter Matthau’s hindquarters
1959 · Comedy, Romance, Crime · 2h 3m · NR · Curator 9.7/10 (658.9K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, MGM Plus, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
For Wilder’s elastic comic timing, romantic complication, and the way farce can conceal real longing.
1966 · Comedy, Drama, Crime · 2h 5m · NR · Curator 5.5/10 (32.3K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Pairs Jack Lemmon with Wilder in a dry, character-based comedy that balances cynicism and pathos.