We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)

What makes We All Loved Each Other So Much so special is how it turns a nation’s postwar hangover into something intimate: a friendship you can feel in your bones, tested not by villains but by time, ambition, and the compromises of ordinary life. Ettore Scola directs with a buoyant, bittersweet wit—funny in the moment, quietly devastating in the aftertaste—so the laughs never cancel the ache, they deepen it. The film’s nostalgia isn’t a soft-focus longing; it’s the clear-eyed kind that remembers the dreams you once had and asks what you did with them, carried by terrific performances that make these people maddening, lovable, and painfully human. If you want a neat, crowd-pleasing arc, it may feel too rueful and sprawling, but if you’re open to a comedy-drama that feels like leafing through a life, it’s an enduring, deeply satisfying watch.

Ettore Scola is trying to capture the messy comedown after wartime idealism, using three friends as a moving target for Italy’s politics, romance, and self-delusion over decades. The problem is it can feel sprawling and a bit awkward in how it jumps through time and tones—one minute bittersweet comedy, the next blunt melodrama—so if you want a tight, emotionally clean arc, this may test your patience. It’s also very rooted in Italian cultural and film-world references, which can make parts land like inside jokes if you’re not already fluent in that context. Still, the performances (especially Gassman and Manfredi) and the film’s melancholy honesty about compromised ideals are strong, so it’s worth it if you like character-driven, episodic classics more than plot-driven drama.