World War II films from different eras

Life is beautiful

A scene from Life is beautiful. [Photo/Mtime]

Life is beautiful is a 1997 Italian tragicomedy comedy-drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni.

In 1930s Italy, a carefree Jewish book keeper named Guido starts a fairy tale life by courting and marrying a lovely woman from a nearby city. Guido and his wife have a son called Giosué and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido imagines that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize is a tank.

Despite being surrounded by the misery, sickness, and death at the camp, Giosué does not question this fiction because of his father's convincing performance and his own innocence. In the end of film when Guido walks to his death and passes by Giosué hidden in a sweatbox one last time, he is still in character and playing the game.

The film was a critical and financial success, winning Benigni the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 71st Academy Awards as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.