As film scholar Mark Shiel has pointed out, when it won the first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1957, La Strada became the first film to win international success as an example of a new brand of neorealism, "bittersweet and self-conscious".

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.

In La Strada the road ends at the water, the place where the road began. Gelsomina is no longer with Zampanò. He has lost her like he lost Rosa. No other human beside him, he is alone with the sound of the waves licking at the shore.

Rota's score for La strada masterfully conveys moods ranging from energy to poignancy, and it demonstrates his deft handling of music to portray quirky characters.