Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
72 Adela
39 Adventures of Power
78 Afghan Star
61 After the Storm
66 Afterschool
xx All the Best
58 American Casino
72 Amreeka
48 Antichrist
73 Araya
62 Art & Copy
55 As Seen Through These Eyes
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
13 Beautiful Life, A
70 Beeswax
35 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71 Big Fan
66 Black Dynamite
51 Blind Date
xx Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76 Bliss
35 Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57 Boys Are Back, The
45 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
70 Bronson
45 Burning Plain, The
xx Carriers
55 Casi Divas
57 Chelsea on the Rocks
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
59 Collapse
44 Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
67 Departures
xx Dil Bole Hadippa
71 Disgrace
xx Do Knot Disturb
70 Earth Days
24 Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
xx Eulogy for a Vampire
xx Everyone Else
xx Fatal Promises
56 Fifty Dead Men Walking
62 Five Minutes of Heaven
74 Flame & Citron
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
28 Free Style
xx From Mexico with Love
50 Fuel
25 Gentlemen Broncos
50 Give Me Your Hand
58 Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
52 Grace
64 Harmony and Me
81 Headless Woman, The
xx Heretics, The
63 Horse Boy, The
73 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
74 Humpday
94 Hurt Locker, The
29 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16 If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75 In Search of Beethoven
83 In the Loop
61 Intimate Enemies
42 Irene in Time
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
19 Labor Day
xx Laila's Birthday
41 Little Ashes
41 Little Traitor, The
66 Liverpool
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
83 Maid, The
xx Ministers, The
59 More Than a Game
67 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
xx Mystery Team
48 New York, I Love You
73 Night and Day
66 No Impact Man
47 Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34 Other Man, The
xx Painter Sam Francis, The
54 Paper Heart
xx Paradise
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
44 Peter and Vandy
35 Play the Game
77 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx Pretty Ugly People
65 Providence Effect, The
76 Rembrandt's J'accuse
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
40 Shrink
61 Skin
77 Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx Skiptracers
46 Splinterheads
39 St. Trinian's
89 Still Walking
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
55 Storm
65 Tetro
70 That Evening Sun
72 Thirst
xx Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61 Trucker
xx Turning Green
83 U2 3D
66 Unmade Beds
66 Unmistaken Child
70 Visual Acoustics
55 Walt & El Grupo
67 Way We Get By, The
69 We Live in Public
64 Wedding Song, The
64 Where is Where?
xx White on Rice
74 Woman in Berlin, A
69 World's Greatest Dad
70 Yes Men Fix the World
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx You, the Living

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Best of Youth, The

EMAILPRINTMiramax Films

Best of Youth, The reviews
89
9.1 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Foreign

Written by: Sandro Petraglia
Stefano Rulli

Directed by: Marco Tullio Giordana

Release Date:
Theatrical: March 2, 2005
DVD: February 7, 2006

Running Time: 358 minutes, Color

Origin: Italy

Language(s): Italian (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: R for language and brief nudity

Starring Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti, Sonia Bergamasco, Fabrizio Gifuni, Maya Sansa, Valentina Carnelutti, and Jasmine Trinca

Spanning four decades, from the chaotic 1960s to the present, this passionate epic follows two Italian brothers through some of the most tumultuous events of recent Italian history. (Miramax)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This is epic filmmaking on a profoundly human scale, directed to perfection and magnificently acted by everyone in sight.

Read Full Review >
100

Newsweek David Ansen

Smart, generous, as subtle as it is expansive, this is storytelling of a rare order. Six hours may seem like a big investment, but the emotional pay-back is beyond price.

Read Full Review >
100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Like a great novel from a more expansive bygone age, The Best of Youth is full of big thoughts; like a great soap opera, it's also full of sharp plot turns, vibrant characters, and great talk. It is, in short, the best of cinema.

Read Full Review >
100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Those who see it will, quite frankly, not believe their luck. It is that satisfying, that engrossing, that good.

Read Full Review >
100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A major cinema event of the year, a masterpiece of Italian film traditions in social/political realism and historical family epic.

Read Full Review >
100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is a luxury to be enveloped in a good film.

Read Full Review >
100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

So in-depth, so appealing, so easy to sit through and so anomalously grand scale that few who see it will ever forget it.

Read Full Review >
100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Giordana's redemptive vision provides a sense of discovery and a well of hope in the most devastating of troubles, and beautiful surprises in love, friendship and family.

Read Full Review >
100

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

In exchange for a small piece of your life, you receive an infinity.

Read Full Review >
90

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

The Best of Youth takes its chance--almost unheard of, these days--to bloom and unfurl like a novel.

Read Full Review >
90

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The story unfolds at such length and over so many years that politics tend to fade into the wallpaper, leaving an exceptionally rich family story.

Read Full Review >
90

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

And like all great family sagas, The Best of Youth, while tipping its hat to the painful confusion of living life forward, reels it backward to give it the thrilling significance of time and place.

Read Full Review >
90

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is a graceful and enveloping feat of filmmaking.

Read Full Review >
90

Slate David Edelstein

The Best of Youth doesn't have a boring millisecond. It isn't an art film, with longueurs; it's a mini-series with the sweep of a classic novel, with tons of plot.

Read Full Review >
90

Variety Scott Foundas

At nearly six hours, pic's extreme length lets Giordana and screenwriters Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli build up a novelistic rhythm, pulling the audience so deeply and forcefully into their story that it becomes like a enveloping dream; when it's over, parting with the characters is truly sweet and sorrowful.

Read Full Review >
88

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

After all the observations on heartache, politics, art, commerce, passion, identity, mortality, even mental health, six hours begin to seem downright compact.

Read Full Review >
88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The acting is electric. By the end of this haunting, hypnotic film, you feel you have watched lives being lived, not just imagined.

Read Full Review >
88

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A slowly flowering miracle: an epic of normal life.

Read Full Review >
80

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Works as both historical allegory and moving family drama.

Read Full Review >
80

Dallas Observer Michael Fox

Eminently watchable, The Best of Youth nonetheless lacks the devastating emotional gut punch of its obvious inspiration, Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers."

Read Full Review >
80

TV Guide Ken Fox

Rarely have six hours spent doing ANYTHING seemed so rewarding.

Read Full Review >
80

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Lo Cascio and Boni inhabit their roles with keen intellectual and emotional vigor.

Read Full Review >
80

Village Voice Jessica Winter

The movie has the addictive episodic intimacy of great TV.

Read Full Review >
80

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Full of nuance and complexity, but it is also as accessible and engrossing as a grand 19th-century novel.

Read Full Review >
80

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Like some wines, The Best of Youth travels well. From its earliest moments the film is intelligently seen.

Read Full Review >
80

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

A big, family-style Italian dinner, catered to the broadest tastes, yet satisfying all the same.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Post Russell Scott Smith

All the pieces converge in a powerful rush during the second half.

Read Full Review >
75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

If you've got six hours to invest watching superior television in a movie theatre, then spend the time wisely with The Best of Youth.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.1 (out of 10) based on 130 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Cristina A gave it a10:
Gripping, wonderful story, great acting. I didn't want it to end.

Shirley L gave it a10:
I want to give it 9.5. I had seen it at least 6 times and every time I still found new clues and new interpretations of the characters.

Marco B gave it a10:
The movie is very long, so the comment will be very short: it's just an astonishing piece of filmmaking, who leaves you begging for more after 6 hours. Just see it and enjoy the experience.

Jeff T gave it a3:
Too long. I saw this film to practice Italian and that was my motivation to see the whole thing. To begin with, I didn't know it was six hours so I kept waiting for it to end. I don't understand all the raves. I am a foreign film aficionado but this one was much too slow for me and it had too many subplots. I couldn't relate nor bond with any of the characters.

Keyser S. gave it a10:
The most beautiful story?Yes.Seriously,this story will touch the heart of any human being.

John C. gave it a10:
PERFECTION...No other word can describe the acting, the costumes, sets and the so real dialogs...maybe one must have had to live in Italy to enjoy all the subtleness buried within the great screen play...then again, maybe not.

Tod P. gave it a10:
Like no other film. Overwhelming in the way that a great novel can be.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use