General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Family (1987 film)

The Family (Italian: La famiglia) is a 1987 Italian-French drama directed by Ettore Scola that follows a Roman family across eight decades, from 1906 to 1986, through the eyes of its patriarch, the retired teacher Carlo.¹^•² The film competed at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, won five David di Donatello awards including Best Film, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.³^•²^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Original title	La famiglia; English release title The Family¹
Director and writers	Directed by Ettore Scola; screenplay by Ruggero Maccari, Furio Scarpelli, and Scola, with Graziano Diana collaborating on the dialogues¹^•⁵
Cast	Vittorio Gassman (Carlo as adult and grandfather), Fanny Ardant (Adriana), Stefania Sandrelli (Beatrice), Philippe Noiret (Jean-Luc), Ottavia Piccolo (Adelina), Sergio Castellitto (Carletto)⁶
Running time	127 minutes¹
Story span	80 years of one family, 1906 to 1986, set almost entirely within a single Roman apartment²^•⁴
Cannes	In Competition, Feature Films, 1987³
Italian awards	David di Donatello 1987: Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (Gassman), Best Editing; Nastro d'Argento 1987: Best Director, Best Actress (Ardant), Best Screenplay, and others²
US release	Vestron Pictures, December 1987; gross in the US and Canada $346,730⁴^•⁷

Spoilers

Premise and structure

The film is narrated by Carlo, who was born in the house in 1906 and, on his eightieth birthday, waits for the relatives his grandson Carletto has invited to a family gathering. From that frame, the story moves year to year and generation to generation across the twentieth century, against the background of Italian history: the rise of fascism, war, the postwar years, and changing social mores.¹^•²

The action is deliberately confined to the second floor of a city house, with the outdoors seen only through windows. The film opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather holding a baby, the two moments framed by formal family portraits shot 80 years apart with only one common subject. The family's surname is never given.⁴^•⁸

Carlo's recollections trace the household's shifting relationships. In 1926, the year his father died, he falls in love with Adriana, who comes to the house with her sister Beatrice for literature lessons; he later marries Beatrice. His brother Giulio becomes a fascist and, after the war, marries Adelina, the family's maid. In 1956, the year Carlo's daughter marries, he finds himself alone in Rome with Adriana, now returned from Paris.¹

Production

The film was a co-production between Italy and France. Italian companies included Massfilm and Cinecittà, with Rai 1 in association; French partners included Cinémax and Les Films Ariane.⁹^•⁶ Franco Committeri produced.¹⁰

Ricardo Aronovich was the cinematographer, Armando Trovajoli composed the score, Francesco Malvestito edited (with Scola also credited), Luciano Ricceri designed the production, and Gabriella Pescucci designed the costumes.¹^•⁸ The production designer's work drew specific notice from critics: each decade brings a new decor that comments on the world outside while preserving fragments of the past.⁴

Release

The film premiered in Italy on January 20, 1987, in Florence, with the general Italian release on January 29. It screened at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 1987, in competition, and reached France theatrically on August 19, 1987.¹¹^•³ The American premiere took place at the Museum of Modern Art on December 18, 1987, opening the exhibition STZ: The Films of Scola, Tavernier, and Zanussi, with Scola introducing the screening; Vestron Pictures released it in the United States that month.¹²^•⁴ Later releases included Spain on March 3, 1988, where it sold 319,231 admissions.¹⁰^•¹³

A 4K restoration was completed in 2016 at Istituto Luce-Cinecittà from the original 35mm picture negative and 35mm magnetic audio of the theatrical version.⁶ The film is currently available for streaming on Prime Video in the United States.¹⁴

Reception

At Cannes the film competed for the Palme d'Or but did not win; Scola had previously won the Best Director award there in 1976 for Brutti, sporchi, cattivi.³^•¹⁵ In Italy it dominated the 1987 David di Donatello awards, taking Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor for Vittorio Gassman, and Best Editing, and it also won Nastro d'Argento prizes for director, producer, actresses, screenplay, and score.²

American critics responded warmly. Michael Wilmington, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times in February 1988, compared the film's amplitude to the old-fashioned family novel of Dickens, Zola, Balzac, or Tolstoy, and praised Scola's long takes, intricate tracking shots, and a view of the family that is critical but tender.⁴ Vincent Canby of the New York Times later described it as a film conceived as an idea, a family chronicle unfolding entirely within a single set to call attention to the blood ties that bind.¹⁶ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 71% Tomatometer from 7 reviews and a 76% audience score from more than 250 ratings.¹⁶

Place in Scola's career

The film continues the ensemble, socially observant style of Scola's earlier work such as C'eravamo tanto amati and Una giornata particolare, and, like his 1983 wordless dance film Le Bal, it uses a single constrained setting as a stage for historical and social observation.⁴^•¹⁷ Scholars of Italian cinema have read the film as placing the family at the center of a rethinking of the national imaginary, linking familial conflict to different moments of Italian life.¹⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026