Writing for L'Espresso, Italian novelist Alberto Moravia highlighted the film's variations in tone: "Highly expressive throughout, Fellini seems to change the tone according to the subject matter of each episode, ranging from expressionist caricature to pure neo-realism.
In France, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, film critic and co-founder of Cahiers du cinéma, felt that "what La dolce vita lacks is the structure of a masterpiece.