4. Life Is Beautiful (1997)
If you've never seen
Life Is Beautiful, chances are you've at least heard of it, or glimpsed the poster at one point, which features a very happy Roberto Benigni wearing a hat. That's because this movie won a lot of Oscars, and that's how foreign films get into the public consciousness, because we sure aren't going to look for them ourselves, right? Anyway,
Life Is Beautiful starts out as a charming, albeit conventional romantic comedy about a Jewish couple, Roberto Benigni and Nicoletta Braschi, who just happen to live in a Mussolini-ruled Italy. In the same way that one might like to classify Stanley Kubrick's
Full Metal Jacket, though,
Life Is Beautiful is perhaps best-described as a movie in two halves. And the second half couldn't be more different from the first: the story shifts to three years later, and the holocaust is about to begin. The movie becomes about Benigni's character, who now has a son, making up stories to protect him from the truths of what's happening. It's a dramatic turn, and the weight of the transition is certainly felt, given the fluffy nature of the movie's first half.