Federico Fellini

Okay, so ... big subject here.  What makes Fellini the greatest artist in cinema history is that he didn't do just one thing well.  He incorporated all available cinema motifs into a series of personal statements.

His films, generally, use humor and vulgarity to make their points.  Whatever those points are - they don't decode into anything simple.  Something about a species whose being is dominated at times by sexual desire, who are frequently in denial of their true nature, and who are capable in that denial of real creativity and inventiveness.

Skipping straight to the work, here are my most recommended Fellini films :

Nights of Cabiria - An outwardly tough prostitute in Rome muddles through life.  With humor and energy, and more poignancy than males are thought capable of, Fellini examines the human condition.  A couple of scenes make me cry every time.

La Dolce Vita - Bitter at the core, or maybe bittersweet; a big sprawling masterwork about the death of the old world, and the birth of a new one.

Fellini Satyricon - Puts a lot of people off, with its depiction of pedophilic Rome, but I get it.  It's a movie about decadence, about the point where pleasures of the flesh come to dominate human existence. Visually I think that this is the most impressive film I've ever seen.

Roma - This one grew on me.  It's big, it sprawls, it's a Fellini movie for sure.  Not so much about the human psyche or experience this time, but about a city.

City of Women - His wildest film, and most imaginative, and most distinct.  A world dominated by women, albeit as imagined by one creepy old man.