Essential Fellini (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Criterion made excellent choices in narrowing Fellini's oeuvre to 14 films, starting with his earliest, "Variety Lights" (which he co-directed) up through "Intervista," a pseudo-documentary that presaged the mockumentary industry. Alongside the beautifully restored movies are a host of supplements, including the hard-to-find short film "Toby Dammit" and a lengthy reminiscence by Marcello Mastroianni alongside Fellini interviews and commentary tracks. This will keep you busy for weeks!

I don't think anyone needs to justify the greatness of Fellini as a director or Fellini movies as the greatest movies ever made. It is another thing to have most of his movies in one collection and be able to see them in the order they were produced.Presently, I am in Fellini Heaven and Rota's music is in my head most of the day.It is the greatest movie experience of my 84 year old life. Thank you, thank you, thank you!As far as packaging, I am not happy with the weird packaging of these movies. Storage is going to be a problem!When package arrived as quickly as Prime usually delivers, I was disappointed to find two discs floating outside of their fastening. (I have played half of the collection and so far have not found a problem.)I guess trying to fit all of these movies into a package is going to present a problem, so I might understand the decision to package them as they did. If the disks are O.K., I can live with the packaging.Meanwhile, I truly love having most of his movies in one packaging and, thanks to Criterion, the most magnificent documentaries about each movie. Just with the movies I have seen, I feel a total connection with Fellini I never had before. I almost feel he is my spiritual godfather! Long live this genius!!!!

Has provided an intimate education on this great director and everyone who worked with him. Tons of movies and interviews I can watch over and over again. Beautiful packaging and booklet with personal drawings and notes.

If you are a fan of Fellini, buy this and you will see some great films you may not have seen, together with some important early films that were not even releases in the US until years later, when Fellini was recognized as a master. Ask Martin Scorcese if you doubt that.The Criterion tranfer of the films to BluRay is wonderful. I concentrated on the early films first, and then dove into La Strada, but you can watch in whatever order. I was very aware of his incredible talent, but watching these makes me love Fellini films even more.

A massive huge boxset containing many Fellini masterpieces. Only a pity though that I,Clowns is not included. Highest possible recommendation.

I love Fellini’s films so to finally own this collection is a dream come true. A must have Criterion release, in my opinion. Although I like the artwork on the package and its contents, I really do wish Criterion would not make these awesome collections come in huge boxes. With the Godzilla set I understood why they did it , it’s Godzilla, but with this I have no clue. Unless they’re thinking some folks will get a fancy wooden frame for it and hang it up on the wall. Lol!

Got it really fast. Everything is awesome about this. The quality is very nice. Both books are completely illustrated. Maybe the placement of the discs isn't the best (it's not cheap at all, just a little bit difficult to take the discs out and may not be suitable for hard movements). But overall this collection has it all.I would love to have clips that went missing such as Fellini's clip from Boccaccio 70 but I can say this bundle is really complete. I haven't had time to watch Mastroianni's documentary or to find the extra documentaries.You won't regret to buy this. It's worth every penny!

I am not going to write about the great films contained in this compilation -- they speak for themselves and I can't imagine anyone but a Fellini lover would buy all of his films together unless they really love these masterpieces. But I will speak to how the discs are packaged.People use to complain when the 12in x12in LP jacket was replaced by the minuscule 5in x5in CD "jewel case" (stupid name) because unlike the LP jacket, it had no room for artwork -- a very valid complaint. The same restricted space happened when the LaserDIsc format with its LP sized jacket gave way to the DVD case and even smaller BluRay case. But with this offering the producers decided to eschew the small BluRay case size and go back to the LP size jacket, a full 12in x12in size allowing the insertion of two very robust booklets with copious notes.That said, while the large LP size box allows for what could have been some magnificent artwork or stunning graphics, unfortunately what we get is some very mediocre and downright ugly B&W photo of the Master, plus some cheap, single color (orange) graphic design that looks like it came off a cereal box. At $124 they couldn't spring for full color artwork that doesn't look like a cartoon? But, on the other hand, the booklets that are contained are very well done and quite attractive, so it sort of offsets the box's front cover artwork.Then again, I would be much happier trying to figure out where I was going to store this really odd shape box if the reason for it was to sport some beautiful artwork. But without that element, it just becomes this awkward thing that won't fit in any of the usual storage spaces that people use for their DVDs & BluRays -- not on the shelves, or the cabinets or the racks. I am afraid that this odd-box-out will wind up being stuck somewhere out of sight and forgotten rather than in a place of prominence that Fellini deserves.