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It's hard to tell which Fellini's film leads the way; "8 1/2", "La Dolce vita", "La strada", "Amarcord" and so many more, you just can't choose.

But, when it comes to this beautiful picture, things become clearer. It's not just the amazing perfomance by Giullietta Masina, it's not just the wonderful, semi-crazy characters wondering around the screen and emphasizing Kabiria's sad and lonely world, it's -and that's the film's greatest quality- this sense of optimism that Fellini wants the viewer to take with him/her as he/she is leaving the theater. The master takes everything from his heroin but at the end he wants to convey one simple, eassy-to-grip but so essential message: "Please, don't give up". The power of the film's last ten minutes is unpreceded in the world of movies and, sad to say, never again have we seen such an amazing finale. This is a must-see film, and, most important of all, a film so generous to its viewers that one time is not enough. A total 9/10

I almost turned this film off. I'm so glad I stayed with it. It's one of the best films I've seen. Cabiria, the street prostitute, is not sympathetic. She's rough, vulgar, not very attractive, a showoff, loud, proud, inelegant. I just didn't feel anything for her character at the beginning. But Fellini must have been reading my mind. He purposefully played it that way to draw the viewer in.

The streets of Rome are unforgiving and harsh for a prostitute. There are those who sleep in caves and in the archways. Cabiria braggingly says, "I've got my own house...here's one girl who's never slept under the arches. Well, maybe once. Twice maybe." By the end of the film I was completely hooked by her charm, desire, and hope. For hope is what keeps Cabiria going. A great film.

I would not argue that there could be better films made before and after Cabiria. Perhaps. But there never will be another "Nights of Cabiria" - the last Fellini's film with the linear structure, his third and the most successful collaboration with his actress wife, Giulietta Masina, his immortal love letter to her. Of all his characters, Fellini once said, Cabiria was the only one he was still worried about. Of all the characters, I've seen in the films, Cabiria is the one I often think about - what ever happened to her? Did she survive? Was she able to find love?

I've never seen the face so alive, changing its expression every moment. If the face is the soul's mirror, Cabiria's (Masina's) face reflects her every single emotion and how effortlessly she goes from bitter cynicism to wistful yearning, from despair to hope, from tears to smile. While there's life there's hope. As long as Cabiria smiles in the end of this tragicomic masterpiece, there is hope for all of us.

Federico Fellini, the genius of the Italian cinema left his imprint in all the films he directed for all of us to enjoy forever. "Le Notti di Cabiria" stands as one of his best because of the character of that invincible woman at the center of the story: Cabiria! Having recently seen the excellent copy that was shown at NY's Film Forum, this is a film that like good wine gets better with age.

Fellini was the man whose idea was translated for the screen with his usual collaborators, Tulio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano. Pier Paolo Passolini contributed to some of the dialog. Essentialy, this is a timeless tale of a woman that despite adversity, bad times, and all that is wrong around her, keeps her chin up and never begrudges a thing. In fact, Cabiria, despite of her profession, is a woman with a highly moral character.

The film takes us back to another, more innocent era. We are shown a prostitute with a heart of gold who is always cheated by most of the men who comes in contact with her. Cabiria is never resentful, or bitter at the hand life throws her way.

One of the best realized sequences of the film involves Cabiria being picked up by a handsome and popular actor, Alberto Lazzari. Alberto is about the only one in the movie that treats Cabiria with any semblance of warmth. Unfortunately, nothing happens between them because Alberto's lover, the gorgeous Jessy, arrives at Alberto's apartment to claim what's hers, leaving Cabiria shut up in a bathroom. If only her friends could see her then! Nobody would believe it!

There is not a moment out of place in the film. Of course, Fellini had the incomparable Giulietta Masina playing the leading role. Ms. Masina is just too wonderful for words. She makes us believe she is Cabiria, and that's that, which in itself it's something other actresses try harder, without the same results. Ms. Masina's face reveals all that is going on within Cabiria. Together with all her other creations in other Fellini's films, this is perhaps her own triumph as an actress.

Franca Marzi, who plays Cabiria's best friend, is also excellent. Amadeo Nazzari is perfect portraying the matinée idol, Alberto Lazzari. This was one of his best appearances in a distinguished career in the Italian cinema. The rest of the cast is wonderful.

Fellini's masterpiece is a film that satisfies any time one sees it thanks to his vision and the presence of Giulietta Masina.

As a film-lover, there are movies that I've outgrown, movies that disappointingly lose their connection to me as I age and mature. Fellini's "Le Notti di Cabiria" is one of those movies that seems to grow with me. It grows richer with each yearly viewing. I never tire of it; I am moved in different ways each time I see it. Fellini and his amazing muse, Giulietta Masina, created one of those rare movie masterpieces in 1957 that comments on its time, yet remains fresh and contemporary as well. But I lament that this gem is so little known today. I trust its recent restoration will help remedy the movie-going public's oversight. The film's rich concluding scene alone (and Masina's glance into our eyes) remains one of the most magical moments ever projected on a screen.

This is one of the most perfect films ever committed to celluloid. It involved me more than at least 99% of other films I've seen, and the main character, Cabiria, is a character to cherish and love forever (of course, we who have seen La Strada are already partly familiar with the character). I've hardly ever cared more about a character, and even after only five minutes into the film, I wanted so desperately to protect her. Giulietta Masina is so masterful in her performance, and Federico Fellini, her husband, is as masterful in his direction. I did not believe that they could match their success with La Strada, but, in fact, they succeeded in surpassing it. Bravo. 10/10. One of the best films ever made, plain and simple.

A prostitute whose life is a veritable study in the resilience of the human spirit is the subject of `Nights of Cabiria,' directed by Federico Fellini. Giulietta Masina stars as Cabiria, a gentle soul at heart who manages to maintain a positive outlook even in the face of adversity. Experiences that would leave those of lesser mettle jaded she is seemingly able to ward off and emerge from intact, with a guarded optimism that nevertheless leaves her open to whatever ills life may have in store for her next. But it is just that optimism and her sense of joy in the simple things that makes her so endearing. She is proud, for example, of the fact that she owns her own house, hovel though it may be. Though not one to be easily duped, she is vulnerable to sincere persistence, which has in the past rendered her victim to those who would take advantage of her, which is succinctly established in the opening scene of the film. Fellini's film is a study of how good may succumb to evil, and yet still triumph in the end (though open to subjective interpretation). It's something of an examination of endurance; how many times can one be knocked down before finally being unable to stand back up again. At the same time, however, it's an example of how purity can prevail against even the utmost cruelty. There is a humanity manifested in Cabiria that somehow gives absolution, not only to her lifestyle, but to those who would willingly do her harm. And it is in that very same absolution that we find a message of hope and redemption. As Cabiria, the diminutive Masina gives a performance that is nothing less than superlative, filled with nuance and expression. She has a face and a manner that convey an unbelievable depth of emotion, and Fellini captures every bit of it with his camera to perfection. It sometimes seems that she is a sprite merely masquerading as a woman; she has a light, almost ethereal presence, though at the same time she exhibits an earthy quality that gives her character such complexity, which removes any semblance of stereotype one may assign to her character as a `lady of the evening.' It is a heartfelt, memorable portrayal that quite simply should have earned her an Oscar for Best Actress. Turning in a noteworthy performance, also, is Francois Perier, as Oscar D'Onofrio, the stranger who comes into Cabiria's life with an offer that ultimately seems too good to be true. The supporting cast includes Amedeo Nazzari (Alberto Lazzari), Aldo Silvani (The Hypnotist), Franca Marzi (Wanda), Dorian Gray (Jessy), Mario Passante (Cripple in the `Miracle' sequence), Pina Gualandri (Matilda), Leo Cattozzo (Man with the sack) and Polidor (The Monk). `Nights of Cabiria' is a film of extraordinary depth that is beautiful as well in it's humanity; Fellini has created images, both visually and emotionally, that are stunning and indelibly realized. Highlighted by the performance of Giulietta Masina, this is a film that begs to be embraced, one that will stay with you long after the last shadow has passed from the screen into darkness. In Cabiria, Fellini somehow touches something eternal, for there is a lasting sense of innate goodness about her that simply cannot be forgotten. For seekers after wisdom and truth, this is definitely a film that must not be missed. I rate this one 10/10.

I am not much in favor of "best" lists--I wouldn't make it in Cusack's "High Fidelity" world--but I can usually offer a range of titles of films that I consider the most powerful experiences I have had in front of a screen--Bicycle Thief, Ran, Ordet, Seventh Seal, Citizen Kane, L'Avventura, Rear Window, Blade Runner, quite a few others. But if I had to pick just one title, it would be Nights of Cabiria. I saw it when it first came out in this country--I was a junior in high school and fortunate enough to live near a theater that showed foreign films. It ran for several weeks and I kept going back to see it over and over, giving myself permission by dragging friends to see it. No one was ever disappointed, though only a couple of friends developed a comparable enthusiasm with mine. I have continued to see

it every chance I get, though I have not had the opportunity to see the latest reissue--I probably will have to see it on

video or dvd, since the city I now live in rarely shows any foreign films. Giulietta Massina gives not just the greatest

performance of her career, but surely one of the greatest

performances ever recorded on film, and the sequence of Cabiria's experiences, at first seemingly random and insignificant, adds up to one of the most profound statements Fellini ever made about human life.

Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) is a street walker in Rome. She is first joyfully with her boyfriend Giorgio. Suddenly, he pushes her into the river and steals her purse. She almost drowns. When she regains consciousness, she screams at her rescuers and calls for her boyfriend. Life is hard for her. Giorgio is gone with her money. She's not pretty. She's not the brightest girl. She's frustrated. A vaudeville magician hypnotized the woman as she acts out a date with her dream man. Accountant Oscar is impressed with her honest love and proposes marriage. Cabiria sells everything she has to get 400k lire so that the couple could open a shop. However, her struggle to find love may not come to the happily ever after that she wants so much.

Cabiria is an unique character. She is not always likable. She is angry at times. She is an idiot at other times. Federico Fellini creates a damaged character who can't seems to get it right ever. It does meander for much of the first half. The most interesting section starts with the vaudeville show. It ramps up the energy of the movie. The last half of the movie is riveting.

My friends went to see The Queen last night - I was too tired and decided to go back home. I put in the DVD and got into bed figuring I would watch an half hour or so and fall asleep. At the end of nearly 2 hours, I was sitting up straight, wide awake, awestruck at the genius in the direction and acting. This is cinema at its finest. I have seen La Strada before and I now rank Fellini's earlier work as among my all time favorites (along with Ozu.) Masina's tearful smile at the camera at the end is pure magic - so much dignity and hope captured in a single second. Her performance throughout the movie was a revelation - she got innocent hope and graceful charm to shine through her foul-mouthed vulgar acting character. I simultaneously cared and despaired for her - this movie pulled me in like no recent Hollywood movie has for a long long time.

Nights of Cabiria's main strength is its actress Masina, who makes the film extremely involving. Her character exudes a convincingly tough exterior yet also an underlying vulnerable hope. The film gives her many opportunities to find a fulfilling life but dashes her hopes every time, from the very start to the famous actor to her eventual husband. Her emotional journey allows us to understand why and how she retains hope during this whole time, yet the theme of a "hooker with a heart of gold" was overdone in this film (especially during the church sequence) and the betrayals felt too repetitive.

...alongside La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2 and Amarcord. Fellini's films are not for everybody perhaps, but I admire them how well made made and directed they are, some of them like Amarcord and the peacock in the snow have breathtakingly beautiful images that stay long in the mind, for his choices in composers and actors, for his deliberately paced and sometimes ambitious stories(8 1/2 is especially true of this) and also that the characters are not always what they seem at first glance. Nights of Cabiria I have seen before criticised as grating, sentimental and self-indulgent(the latter being a criticism of Fellini's films in general and him also actually), and while I am understanding, I personally don't agree.

I find Nights of Cabiria to be one of his accessible films, and along with La Strada also his most moving. Again it is incredibly well made, with beautiful scenery and cinematography. The images are again very memorable, and done with much emotional resonance, the best of which being the ending which is both tragic and uplifting. Fellini's direction is superb, the personal nostalgia that is apparent in all his films is here and you do identify with the story and the titular character. The music has much beauty and nostalgic charm, while the story perfectly tells of the sheer happiness and then tearful sorrow of unfortunate Cabiria's life. Cabiria, the titular character, is one you can identify with immediately, feeling pity and also her conflicting emotions as she tries to remain positive even in the face of adversity. Giulietta Masina gives a bravura performance, her face and eyes are beautifully expressive and she is just heart-breaking. Francois Perier also shines as the stranger who makes the offer that is almost too good to be true.

Overall, a truly beautiful film and one of Fellini's best, certainly one of my favourites as well. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Giulietta Massina as the the prostitute is who was born to lose(but still never give up) is MASTERFUL.She creates a wonderful innocent character.Federico Fellini (her husband)is telling a very simple still complicated story and I was VERY impressed with his fantastic direction. I must say that you suffer with Cabiria, For example when she meets the movie star.A masterpiece from the start to the end and I would call it one of the best films ever made.No doubt about 5/5

I saw this movie for the first time last night, and I have to post my first review on the site to say it is really wonderful. Giulietta Masina's performance is truly one of the most impressive I've ever seen - her face is as expressive as Buster Keaton's or Charlie Chaplin's.

The movie is a deceptively simple story about the day-to-day encounters of a prostitute who does the best she can to make a living and maintain her hopes and dreams of a better life. Her relationships with her neighbors, friends, and street-corner associates are a major focus, as are her relationships with the many men that come and go in her life. In the latter regard, it is obvious that this film was the inspiration for many other plays and films, including Sweet Charity.

The series of people encountered by Cabiria in the movie shows us the full range of human reaction to life's adversity - some respond with cynicism and prey on others without remorse, some respond with generosity and hope, some respond by clinging to certain belief systems that don't really help them in a material way, etc. Cabiria definitely stands out as a unique character within the gritty, grimy community of post-war Rome, where there are stark differences between people of different classes and livelihoods. We can see that she is a good person living in a world that is not always humane or fair.

I won't give away the ending, but I will say that it took a lot of creativity and inspiration to include the ending of this movie as it is - I'm sure it was as startling and unexpected to audiences in 1957 as it is emotionally moving still today.

The direction, photography, and acting are all first-rate in this classic. Everybody involved was obviously engaged in a labor of love. I cannot recommend it more highly.

I love Federico Fellini, but I dread his early works like La Strada because they are so sad. Poor Giulietta Masina, one of the greatest film actresses of all time, she always gets the short end of the stick and because the movie magic is so intense, our heart breaks right along with her.

Fellini is the Great Director Italian style. I don't mean he isn't the greatest director, better than Hitchcock, Welles, a modern like Scorcese. I'm looking at his work, have seen most of them, and I can't make up my mind. He might be the greatest that ever lived. His films in black and white, the Neo-Realism of Italian film after the war, the incredible original vision, the writing, and directing, it's as though Michelangelo came back as a director.

Masina is a prostitute, but her loves turn out to be pocketbook grabbers. Her physical well being is not high on her boyfriend's priority list. She's such a little women, frail, and in Nights she plays a tough, brawling, whimsical, and hopeless romantic. Her acting style is over the top, almost carnival character as she had played it in La Strada, but as Cabiria, she's older, but not necessarily wiser. The final revelation with French actor François Périer is so heart rendering because after an hour and a half of Cabiria's, laughter, trials, and disappointments, we identify with her completely. And then, in one last scene, the carnival returns with hope.

There is so much more to say about this film. You could write a book.

In a way "Nights of Cabiria" is the companion piece to "La Strada", both directed by Federico Fellini, both starring his wife and muse Giulietta Masina and both dealing with a woman and her struggle with life. And yet the movies conclude quite differently. Cabiria is one of those characters that really get under your skin in the progression of the film - it's a woman who seems difficult to understand at the beginning when she's saved from drowning, yet doesn't even have a word of thanks for her saviours and heads off ranting. What follows is grand character development. Episode by episode we get deeper in Cabiria's heart and mind, her hopes and dreams, see her praying for a miracle, but again and again she fails, is used, ridiculed, ignored. Cabiria is not just a naive girl stumbling into her doom, she rather seeks salvation in simplicity and belief when everything else shatters to pieces. She's actually quite a complex character - emotional, earthy and proud in her own way, yet vulnerable and always on the brink. And we are swept away with her when eventually that turn in her fate is actually happening, the change for which we've all been rooting by then.

It all leads up to one of the most striking final scenes in cinema history - Fellini's camera work and Masina's performance invoke pure movie magic: Never before is a greeting from a total stranger as heart-warming as here, never again will a well-timed nod into the camera be so electrifying as Cabiria's. Maybe you already know what I mean. In any case I conclude with: Buona sera!

Federico Fellini's tale about a prostitute named Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) is a tale about trying to escape your own life, which has become unbearable. Cabiria works as a prostitute, and she's not had the best of luck when it comes to men, or anything for that matter. The film is a collection of scenes with her as she tries just about everything to break the mold. She tries anger and shouting. She tries friendship. She tries religion. Just about everything. But it all seems to circle around, over and over again.

Masina is very good in her role. Her Cabiria is a vulnerable little thing, whose bark is just about everything she has. Even when she's acting tough, because there's really nothing else to do, you can see that she's one step away from crying. And that makes her sympathetic.

The film is also shot well, as expected from a director as renowned as Fellini. The locations are interesting, the camera moves well and the scenes are constructed nicely.

Yet I can't really claim that I liked the film. And that's because the film is frankly speaking depressing. Cabiria is a writhing ball of misery, all the people around her are either indifferent or using her for their own gains, and whenever there seems to be hope in sight, it turns out to be false. Sure, that's very much intentional, but it still means that you leave the film feeling downtrodden. And the film offers nothing in return. It simply wants to show you that this exists.