Movie · 1965 · Comedy, Drama, Fantasy · 2h 28m · IT
Curator score: 8.5/10 (16K ratings)
The inhibitions... the desires... the obsessions... of a jealous woman held prisoner by her own dreams
Overview
Middle-aged Giulietta grows suspicious of her husband, Giorgio, when his behavior grows increasingly questionable. One night when Giorgio initiates a seance amongst his friends, Giulietta gets in touch with spirits and learns more about herself and her painful past. Slightly skeptical, but intrigued, she visits a mystic who gives her more information -- and nudges her toward the realization that her husband is indeed a philanderer.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.5/10
IMDb: 7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 79%
Metacritic: 84
TMDB: 7.2/10
Director
Federico Fellini
Production
Francoriz Production, Rizzoli Film, Cineriz
Cast
Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu, Valentina Cortese, Valeska Gert, José Luis de Vilallonga, Friedrich von Ledebur, Caterina Boratto, Lou Gilbert, Luisa Della Noce, Silvana Jachino, Milena Vukotić, Dany París, Anne Francine, Sylva Koscina, Elena Fondra, Anita Sanders, Mary Arden, Cesarino Miceli Picardi, Robert Wolders
Where to watch
Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A visually extravagant, psychologically rich Fellini dreamscape that turns marital betrayal into a surreal journey of self-discovery. It can feel loose or opaque, but the color, invention, and Giulietta Masina’s performance make it a major art-cinema experience.
Best for
Fans of surrealist and dreamlike cinema
Viewers interested in mid-century European art films
People drawn to psychological portraits of women
Anyone who values visual style and color design as much as narrative
Skip if
You want a straightforward, tightly plotted story
You dislike symbolic or ambiguous filmmaking
You prefer realism over fantasy and interiority
You have little patience for episodic, free-associative structure
Overview
Juliet of the Spirits is Fellini at his most lushly unmoored, using color, costume, and spectacle to externalize a woman’s private crisis. What begins as a story about suspicion and infidelity gradually opens into a feverish exploration of memory, repression, desire, and selfhood. The film is less interested in solving Giulietta’s marriage than in revealing the psychic weather around it.
Worth noting
Giulietta Masina gives the film its emotional center, balancing fragility, curiosity, hurt, and a growing sense of awakening. Around her, Fellini builds a world that feels both decadent and haunted: séances, visions, gossip, and erotic fantasy all bleed together. The result is often dazzling, sometimes deliberately disorienting, and always intensely personal.
Bottom line
It may frustrate viewers who want clean narrative logic, but that looseness is part of its power. This is a film of sensations, symbols, and emotional aftershocks, and its images linger long after the plot details fade. For viewers open to Fellini’s more painterly, interior mode, it is one of his most rewarding works.
Ah, to be a genius director husband apologizing to his genius actress wife via a visually splendid, profound, memorable and nearly incomprehensible starring vehicle about infidelity.
Edgar Cochran ✝️🍋 (4★) · 203 likes
This is a surreal exploration of the protagonist's self through metaphysical (and demonic activity) means before being a woman's process of coping with her husband's infidelity, and that is important to understand before anything. The Italian auteur's trademark direction is scattered all over the place, sometimes uncontrollably and sometimes working against him, cheerfully contrasting an idyllic upper-class setting with the disorders of the bourgeoisie and the terrors of spirits called by seances. Psychology as a "science" is mocked as having… more This is a surreal exploration of the protagonist's self through metaphysical (and demonic activity) means before being a woman's process of coping with her husband's infidelity, and that is important to understand before anything. The Italian auteur's trademark direction is scattered all over the place, sometimes uncontrollably and sometimes working against him, cheerfully contrasting an idyllic upper-class setting with the disorders of the bourgeoisie and the terrors of spirits called by seances. Psychology as a "science" is mocked as having… more
Dante (4★) · 183 likes
my mom says this is Fellini’s best movie and i believe women
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (3.5★) · 174 likes
RESEÑA EN ESPAÑOL
ACTION! - FELLINI'S DREAMS
Fellini’s first venture into color cinema wastes no time exploiting its full potential, delivering an eye-popping, breathtaking spectacle—from lavish sets to lush costumes and mesmerizing cinematography, everything is strikingly beautiful.
The film unfolds less like a traditional narrative and more like a vivid dream (or nightmare, depending on who you ask) brought to life. It’s hard to imagine that filmmakers like Jodorowsky haven’t drawn inspiration from this, as many surrealist elements evoke a… more