Cinema Paradiso

Salvatore is a famous film director in Rome. One night he learns that Alfredo has died, and he remembers. A Sicilian village after the war, where the only light is the cinema on the square. A small boy called Totò, sneaking into the projection booth. Alfredo, the projectionist, grumbling and kind, who becomes the father he lost. The local priest who watches every film first and rings a bell at every kiss, so Alfredo can cut it. Years of films, laughter, a fire, a first love. And Alfredo's advice: leave, and never come back.

Giuseppe Tornatore made this when he was barely thirty, and it became one of the most loved films ever made. Philippe Noiret is perfect as Alfredo, and the boy who plays young Totò is pure joy. Ennio Morricone's score is so beautiful it almost feels unfair. The village, the audience shouting at the screen, the films seen as a shared ritual: it is a portrait of a whole way of life that television was about to end.

Yes, it is sentimental. It is supposed to be. It is a film about memory, about growing up and leaving, and about the price of becoming the person you wanted to be. And then there is the ending, the reel of kisses, which I don't think anyone has watched with dry eyes. It won the Oscar and the Grand Prix at Cannes. A masterpiece of the heart.