Benigni became widely known in Italy in the 1970s for a television series called Onda Libera, on Rai 2, produced by Renzo Arbore, in which he interpreted the satirical piece The Hymn of the Body Purged (L'inno del corpo sciolto, a scatological song about the joys of defecation).

Bernardo Bertolucci then cast him in a small speechless role as a window upholsterer in the film La Luna which had limited American distribution due to its subject matter.

In Down By Law (1986) (which in Italy had its title spelt "Daunbailò", in Italian phonetics[9]) he played Bob, an innocent foreigner living in the United States, convicted of manslaughter, whose irrepressible good humour and optimism help him to escape and find love (the film also starred Braschi as his beloved).

In Night on Earth, (1991) he played a cabbie in Rome, who causes his passenger, a priest, great discomfort and a heart attack by confessing his bizarre sexual experiences.

[citation needed] Benigni is widely known outside Italy for his 1997 tragicomedy Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella), filmed in Arezzo, also written by Cerami.

The film is about an Italian Jewish man who tries to protect his son's innocence during his internment at a Nazi concentration camp, by telling him that the Holocaust is an elaborate game and he must adhere very carefully to the rules to win.

More favourable critics praised Benigni's artistic daring and skill to create a sensitive comedy involving Holocaust, a challenge that Charlie Chaplin confessed he would not have taken on with The Great Dictator had he been aware of the true horrors occurring in ghettos and concentration camps in Europe at the time.

Overcome with giddy delight after Life Is Beautiful was announced as the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, Benigni climbed over and then stood on the backs of the seats in front of him and applauded the audience before proceeding to the stage.

At the following year's ceremony, when he read the nominees for Best Actress (won by Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry), host Billy Crystal playfully appeared behind him with a large net to restrain Benigni if he got excessive with his antics again.

That same year, he gave a typically energetic and revealing interview to Canadian filmmaker Damian Pettigrew for Fellini: I'm a Born Liar (2002), a cinematic portrait of the maestro that was nominated for Best Documentary at the European Film Awards.

The film went on to win the prestigious Rockie Award for Best Arts Documentary at the Banff World Television Festival (2002) and the Coup de Coeur at the International Sunnyside of the Doc Marseille (2002).

On 15 October 2005, he performed an impromptu striptease on Italy's most watched evening news program, removing his shirt and draping it over the newscaster's shoulders.

The previous day, he had led a crowd of thousands in Rome on Friday in protest at the centre-right government's decision to cut state arts funding by 35 per cent.

Benigni is an improvisatory poet (poesia estemporanea is a form of art popularly followed and practised in Tuscany), appreciated for his explanation and recitations of Dante's Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia) from memory.

Combining current events and memories of his past narrated with an ironic tone, Benigni then begins a journey of poetry and passion through the world of the Divine Comedy.