The film premiered at the 15th Venice International Film Festival on 6 September 1954 and won the Silver Lion. It was released in Italy on 22 September 1954, and in the United States on 16 July 1956.

“La Strada” uses cinema so expertly, it creates the kind of impact and emotional experience you can only get from a movie. A landmark in Italian cinema, this powerhouse of a film became one of the world's most influential films, making Fellini and his wife (the film's star Giulietta Masina) internationally famous.

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.

Quinn and Basehart have been dubbed into Italian, "La Strada" needs no fuller explanations. It speaks forcefully, poetically and often movingly in a universal language.