“La Strada” uses cinema so expertly, it creates the kind of impact and emotional experience you can only get from a movie. A landmark in Italian cinema, this powerhouse of a film became one of the world's most influential films, making Fellini and his wife (the film's star Giulietta Masina) internationally famous.

La Strada is structurally, and titularly, a road film; “la strada” literally means “the road” in Italian.

He does part of the acting for the actors." Since Quinn and Basehart did not speak Italian, both were dubbed in the original release.

With this breakthrough film, Federico Fellini launched both himself and his wife and collaborator Giulietta Masina to international stardom, breaking with the neorealism of his early career in favor of a personal, poetic vision of life as a bittersweet carnival.