"I Feel Pretty" is a song by Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) from the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story. Maria sings it in the bridal salon where she works (Gimbels in the 2021 film), expressing happiness and beauty because she is loved, while her colleagues tease her about her silly behaviour. In the stage musical and the 2021 film, Maria does not yet know that Tony has killed her brother Bernardo; in the 1961 film, the song comes before Bernardo's death. The original performance was by the 1957 Broadway cast, with Carol Lawrence among the performers. Sondheim said he was never particularly fond of his lyrics, later remarking that the idea of the song is so simple.
Robert Cummings of AllMusic praised one of Bernstein's more memorable melodies, its rising, rhythmic opening four notes, repeated, then reduced to three and then two; the Latin-tinged instrumentation and the girls' chorus entering midway reinforce it. Covers include Annie Ross and Julie Andrews, and Little Richard recorded it for the 1996 tribute album The Songs of West Side Story. The song has been parodied many times, including on Sesame Street, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live in 1975 and Friends. It was cut from the 2019 Broadway revival, but in the 2021 film Tony Kushner persuaded Spielberg and Sondheim to keep it.
