Film
Farinelli
Farinelli is a lush, sensual biography of 18th-century opera's greatest voice—a castrato whose gifts were so extraordinary they transfixed Europe. It's a film about artistic ambition, brotherhood, and the price of perfection, told through ravishing music and painterly cinematography. For anyone who loves costume drama with genuine stakes and a soundtrack that moves you physically.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you are drawn to films where the music itself carries the emotion, and you don't mind a stately, costume-heavy portrait of an artist whose voice was his whole life.
Skip it if you want brisk storytelling or a lot of plot; this one lingers on its sound and its surfaces, and the pace will test patience if you come for narrative momentum.
What it asks of you: Settle in for just under two hours of unhurried, handsomely framed scenes, with long stretches of singing that you have to let wash over you rather than skim.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Amadeus1984
Another immersion in genius, rivalry, and the violent beauty of classical music. The scale is bigger, the drama sharper, and Mozart's music is even more immediately thrilling than Farinelli's arias.
But At three and a half hours, it demands patience. The film can feel like an exercise in showing off rather than a human story, depending on your mood.
The Crown2016
Sweeping historical drama with real emotional intelligence, gorgeous production design, and the same obsession with power, duty, and the personal cost of performance that drives Farinelli.
But Spans decades and seasons, so commitment is required. Some seasons lose focus; you'll find yourself skipping ahead.
Céline and Julie Go Boating1974
A French masterpiece about art, performance, and the blurred line between reality and pretense. Like Farinelli, it's visually stunning and rewards your full attention with moments of genuine magic.
But It's deliberately strange and fragmentary—deliberately anti-plot. Many people find it baffling; patience with ambiguity is essential.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Farinelli
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Satyricon1969
Both are about cultures built entirely on the human body as instrument—voice, flesh, presence. Both are sensuous and unsettling in equal measure.
Fellini's hallucinogenic vision of ancient Rome—a world of sensuality, excess, beauty, and grotesquerie layered so densely you're always lost. Like Farinelli, it's about performance as a way of life and the blurred line between pleasure and pain.
But It has no plot in any conventional sense. Surreal, fragmented, sometimes genuinely repellent. The print is often corrupted; you're watching something that feels excavated rather than preserved.
More like this (5)
The Leopard1963
Visconti's epic about Italian aristocracy and cultural transformation. Same director sensibility—painterly, sumptuous, alert to beauty and decay happening simultaneously.
But Nearly three hours of the Sicilian landed gentry contemplating their own obsolescence. The pace is stately; nothing happens the way modern film trains you to expect.
La traviata1982
Zeffirelli's opera film has the same translucent beauty and the same understanding that classical music is not background—it's the whole point. A story about art and love told entirely on music's terms.
But It's an opera film, so if you don't like opera or foreign language cinema, nothing here will convert you. Subtitles and singing at once.
All the Mornings of the World1991
A French film about a Baroque viol player and the music that saves and destroys him. The same period, the same sensibility, equally gorgeous and melancholic. Companion piece rather than replica.
But Considerably slower than Farinelli. Long sequences of just watching people play instruments; the drama is internal and subtle.
The Seventh Seal1957
Bergman's masterpiece about mortality and performance. Like Farinelli, it's interested in what we do with our gifts when time is running out, and it's unforgettable cinema.
But Black and white, subtitled, and philosophically dense. It will not meet you halfway. You have to bring your whole self or not at all.
The Draughtsman's Contract1982
Greenaway's baroque puzzle-box about art, commission, and power in 17th-century England. Visual and musical obsession, narrative intrigue, and a real sense of historical strangeness.
But Deliberately arch and obscure—the kind of film that seems to be laughing at you. If you prefer clarity to provocation, it will feel like a waste of time.
People
Cast
Stefano DionisiCarlo Broschi (Farinelli)
Enrico Lo VersoRiccardo Broschi
Elsa ZylbersteinAlexandra
Jeroen KrabbéGeorge Frideric Handel
Caroline CellierMargareth Hunter
Marianne BaslerCountess Mauer
Jacques BoudetFelipe V- Graham ValentinePrince of Wales
Pier Paolo CapponiBroschi- Renaud du Peloux de Saint RomainBenedict Hunter
Delphine ZentoutYoung admirer
Omero AntonuttiNicola Porpora
Directing
- Gérard CorbiauDirector
Writing
- Marcel BeaulieuScreenplay
Production
- Gérard MoulévrierCasting
- Jose VillaverdeCasting
- Aldo LadoExecutive Producer
- Dominique JanneExecutive Producer
- Linda GutenbergExecutive Producer
- Stéphane ThenozExecutive Producer
- Véra BelmontProducer
- Leonhard GmürProduction Manager
- Corinne Le HongUnit Manager
Recommended by
La traviata, All the Mornings of the World, Don Carlos, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Les Indes Galantes