Amarcord (Italian: [amarˈkɔrd]) is a 1973 comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini, a semi-autobiographical tale about Titta, an adolescent boy growing up among an eccentric cast of characters in the village of Borgo San Giuliano (situated near the ancient walls of Rimini)[2] in 1930s Fascist Italy.

[6] Fellini skewers Mussolini's ludicrous posturings and those of a Catholic Church that "imprisoned Italians in a perpetual adolescence"[7] by mocking himself and his fellow villagers in comic scenes that underline their incapacity to adopt genuine moral responsibility or outgrow foolish sexual fantasies.

As night falls, the inhabitants make their way to the village square for the fogheraccia, a traditional bonfire in which the segavecchia  [it], an effigy of an old woman, is ritually burned.

[9][10] The townspeople play pranks on one another, explode fireworks, cavort with loose women and make lewd noises when the civically minded lawyer lectures on the history of the region.

All Titta and his fellow students can do is goof off or skip class when not called upon to solve math problems or identify obscure historical details.

When Titta goes to confession, he manages to avoid telling Don Balosa about his masturbatory activities and attempt to seduce Gradisca, a glamorous older woman, because the priest is more concerned with floral arrangements.

Surreptitiously wired into the bell tower of the town church, a gramophone plays a recording of "The Internationale", but it is soon shot at and destroyed by gun-crazy Fascists.

The town's inhabitants embark in small boats to meet the passage of the SS Rex, the regime's proudest technological achievement.

[13] Critic Giovanni Grazzini, reviewing for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, described Fellini as "an artist at his peak" and the film as the work of a mature, more refined director whose "autobiographical content shows greater insight into historical fact and the reality of a generation.

It is an Our Town or Under Milk Wood of the Adriatic seaboard, concocted and displayed in the Roman film studios with the latter-day Fellini's distaste for real stone and wind and sky.

The people, however, are real, and the many non-actors among them come in all the shapes and sizes one cares to imagine without plunging too deep into Tod Browning freak territory.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Ribald, sweet, and sentimental, Amarcord is a larger-than-life journey through a seaside village and its colorful citizens.

"[19] When Amarcord opened in New York City, critic Vincent Canby lauded it as possibly "Fellini's most marvelous film ...

Ingmar Bergman achieves his greatness through thought and soul-searching, Alfred Hitchcock built his films with meticulous craftsmanship, and Luis Buñuel used his fetishes and fantasies to construct barbed jokes about humanity.

In 1984, Amarcord became the first film released for home video fully letterboxed, as implemented by RCA for their Capacitance Electronic Disc videodisc format.