The Hand of God · reception & legacy
2021 · Paolo Sorrentino
How The Hand of God has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Premiered at Venice 2021 to the warmest reviews of Sorrentino's career — the Grand Jury Prize, then an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature — with even his sceptics conceding the stripped-back memoir mode suited him; a few years on it's widely treated as the emotional key to his whole filmography.
What's debated
The eternal Sorrentino split — is he a genuine heir to Fellini or a gorgeous imitator? — gets rerun in every comments section, with this film held up by both camps: proof he has a heart, or proof he's best when he stops showing off.
Its footprint
The title alone plugs it into one of sport's most famous moments — Maradona's 1986 'Hand of God' goal — and the film landed barely a year after Maradona's death, making it double as a global act of mourning for Naples' secular saint.
Where it stands
A Letterboxd favourite in the personal-memoir coming-of-age lane, and the standard recommendation for 'start here if The Great Beauty annoyed you.'
Named by the director
Influences Paolo Sorrentino has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.
- Federico Fellini — Sorrentino has long named Fellini his idol and, in interviews for this film — where Fellini hovers as an off-screen presence — talked openly about working under his shadow while trying not to imitate him.
- Antonio Capuano — Sorrentino has publicly credited the Neapolitan director as his real-life mentor who pushed him into cinema, and put him in the film under his own name.