8½ (1963), directed by Federico Fellini and starring Marcello Mastroianni, is a film about a director who cannot make his film — his creative block, sexual fantasies, childhood memories, and social obligations bleeding together until reality and imagination become indistinguishable. The title refers to the number of films Fellini had made at that point.

Why It Matters

• The definitive film about creativity, artistic block, and the impossibility of reconciling life and art
• Its free-associative structure — cutting between present, memory, dream, and fantasy without signposting — influenced every art film that followed
• Nino Rota's score and Gianni Di Venanzo's black-and-white photography are among cinema's most beautiful

Woody Allen, Bob Fosse, Charlie Kaufman, and Paolo Sorrentino have all made direct homages to this film. It is the template for the reflexive, autobiographical art film and the most honest film ever made about the experience of being a film director.

Reference:

Wikipedia: 8½

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8%C2%BD