Ettore Scola films were always sentimental, pretentious and self-important, full of laborious gimmicks, big themes and immortal phrases. The ambitions were huge (remember "The night of Varennes", "The terrace", "The family", etc.). Sadly, the achievements were mediocre and inversely proportional to the ambitions. Sometimes, only the actors were bearable and help a little (here Manfredi and Sandrelli, Loren and Mastroianni in "Una giornata particolare").In "C'eravamo tanto amati" we have also big themes, but Risi in "Vita difficile" did first and better. Immortal phrases: "We wanted to change life, but life changed us". Stereotypes: the leftist becomes corrupt and capitalist, the money bring no happiness, the idealist movie critic is too impulsive, etc. Gimmicks: the actors talk to the camera and think aloud, colour and b.w. alternates. Besides, the homages to the Italian cinema are crude and obvious. Scola seems to be blackmailing us: "If you don't like my movie, you don't like Fellini, Antonioni and De Sica".I saw this movie many years ago and didn't remember it. I just got today the DVD via Amazon, I have seen 90 min. of the film and I have thrown the DVD to the wastepaper basket

A great movie by a great director in a unique creative state of grace. Some of the scenes are pure poetry: the sudden change from b/w to colour picture (underlined by a moving music score), the dramatic conclusion of a night out in Piazza di Spagna, the overall feeling of nostalgia permeating the entire movie. Yes, this is a movie that will age like good wine. You can grow old with this movie, watch out not be caught too much into its spires of nostalgia. Just glance at Vittorio Gassman last, defeated, cynical look in his face, here the actor and the man are one and the same. The rest of the cast are just as effective and well sorted, nothing is out of place, the synergy between Manfredi, Satta-Flores, Sandrelli, and the great Aldo Fabrizi will keep you enthralled. Simply cinematographic art at its best.

This is a beautiful film about friendship and nostalgia, but above all about loving cinema. To me, this film defines "cinephilia". Cinema and the protagonists' lives are cleverly interwoven. The fleeting images of film, capturing a moment and then disappearing, only to linger in the memory, can be seen as a metaphor for the past that can not be recaptured, a past when we were young and happy and confident and the world was ours. When the credits roll, I feel this strange mixture of happiness and sadness. Oh, how I wish...

Scenes just jump out at you. The three friends going down the steps as one of them describes Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and another breaks down and cries. The fantastic re-enactment of Felini's most famous scene. The game show in which the nerdy film teacher gets a film-related answer wrong on a technicality (shades of John Turturo in Quiz Show). The three friends looking over a fence in a freeze frame at the end... Their expression stuck in one final disapointment.