Best of Youth, The

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

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

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.

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.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

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

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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

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.

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.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

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

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

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

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.

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.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is a graceful and enveloping feat of filmmaking.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A slowly flowering miracle: an epic of normal life.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Works as both historical allegory and moving family drama.

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."

TV Guide Ken Fox

Rarely have six hours spent doing ANYTHING seemed so rewarding.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

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

Village Voice Jessica Winter

The movie has the addictive episodic intimacy of great TV.

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.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

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

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

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

New York Post Russell Scott Smith

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

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.