Stealing Beauty
1996 film by Bernardo Bertolucci

Stealing Beauty (French: Beauté volée, lit. 'Stolen Beauty'; Italian: Io ballo da sola, lit. 'I Dance Alone') is a 1996 coming-of-age drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and starring Jeremy Irons, Liv Tyler, Sinéad Cusack, Jean Marais, Donal McCann, D. W. Moffett, Stefania Sandrelli and Rachel Weisz. Written by Bertolucci and Susan Minot, the film is about a 19-year-old American girl who travels to a lush Tuscan villa near Siena to stay with family friends of her poet mother, who recently died. It is an international co-production of France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Stealing Beauty was released in Italy in March 1996, and was officially selected for the 1996 Cannes Film Festival in May. It was released in the United States on 14 June 1996.
The film was made entirely in the Tuscany region of Italy during the summer of 1995. The main location for filming was the estate of Castello di Brolio, and a small villa on the property.
Plot
Following the suicide of her mother, famous poet Sara Harmon, 19-year-old American Lucy arrives at the Tuscan villa of her mother's friends, Ian and Diana Grayson. Other guests include a New York art gallery owner, an Italian advice columnist and a dying English playwright, Alex Parrish. Diana's son Christopher is due to return from a trip with Niccolò Donati, who lives in a nearby villa.
The public source identifies “Stealing Beauty” as 1996 film by Bernardo Bertolucci. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Stealing, Beauty and film.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q749191. The Library of Congress control number is n96038370. 1 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Stealing Beauty” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.