The movie, starring alongside Marcello Mastroianni Swedish movie goddess Anita Ekberg, depicts seven days (and nights) in the life of a Marcello Rubini, a Roman journalist writing for gossip magazines torn between making something serious of his life or drifting along on a pleasant if empty stream of casual affairs and profitable, but meaningless, newspaper and magazine work. In the end, he seems to have cut himself adrift on a sea of frivolity and self-disgust, with no real idea of how to find his way "home" again.

"La dolce vita" won the Palm d’Or at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes and remains one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time.