Life Is Beautiful (La Vita e Bella): One of a Kind Oscar Winner

When the Italian film La vita e bella or Life is Beautiful opened in fifteen theaters in the United States on August 1999, it earned $63,934 for its opening weekend. However, the film became successful commercially. In North America, it went on to gross $57.24 million and internationally, it earned $171.60 million.

The film is about a Jewish Italian named Guido Orefice who has dreams of putting up a bookstore while working as a waiter. He then courts and marries Dora, a local school teacher and the two had a son. When the German forces invaded Italy, Guido and his family were confined in a Nazi concentration camp. During their captivity, Guido employed his imagination by treating the Holocaust as an elaborate game with a tank as the grand prize for winning as an attempt to protect his family especially the virtue of his son from the horrors of the concentration camp. Guido is played by Italian actor Roberto Benigni, who also directed and co-wrote film while Dora is portrayed by Nicoletta Braschi who is Benigni's wife in real-life.