Best Of...

Italian cinema: Drama

8½ (1963)
Federico Fellini

Guido Anselmi is a film director who is up against the biggest crisis of his career. His last film was a huge success and his producer is expecting its successor to be an even greater hit...   [More...]

A ciascuno il suo (1967)
Elio Petri

In a small Sicilian town a pharmacist named Manno begins receiving anonymous letters threatening him with death. Because Manno has something of a reputation as a Don Juan no one takes the death threats seriously, until he is shot dead, along with his friend Roscio, during a hunting trip...   [More...]

Accattone (1961)
Pier Paolo Pasolini

In the slums outside Rome, a young man nicknamed Accattone passes the time with his friends, all of whom have no prospect or desire to find an honest job...   [More...]

Au-delà des grilles (1949)
René Clément

Pierre is on the run from the police, careful to evade capture after murdering the mistress who dared to be unfaithful to him...   [More...]

L'Avventura (1960)
Michelangelo Antonioni

A party of wealthy holiday makers from Rome are enjoying a yachting excursion off the coast of Sicily. Soon after they arrive on a deserted volcanic island, one of the group - a young woman named Anna - mysteriously disappears...   [More...]

The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
Joseph L. Mankiewicz

At the funeral of Maria Vargas, the men who fashioned her into a myth remember their part in her tragic life. Burned out film director Harry Dawes recalls how he went to Spain with his rich but artistically ignorant film producer Kirk Edwards to persuade the unknown Maria, a cabaret dancer, to take up a career in the movie business...   [More...]

La Bataille d'Alger (1966)
Gillo Pontecorvo

In 1957, Algeria is a divided country, with an ever-growing fraction of the population wanting to gain independence from France...   [More...]

Blaise Pascal (1972)
Roberto Rossellini

Blaise Pascal is 16 years old when his family moves to Rouen in 1639 so that his father Étienne can take up his new position as the king's commissioner of taxes...   [More...]

Borsalino (1970)
Jacques Deray

Marseille, 1930. After completing a six month stretch in prison, Roch Siffredi returns to his girlfriend to find her in the company of another man, François Capella...   [More...]

La Caduta degli dei (1969)
Luchino Visconti

Germany, 1933. As the Nazis' grip on their country increases, a family of wealthy industrialists strive to turn the situation to their advantage...   [More...]

Cartesius [TV] (1974)
Roberto Rossellini

By the time he leaves the Jesuit school he has attended since childhood, René Descartes has a keen fascination for mathematics and philosophy...   [More...]

Catene (1949)
Raffaello Matarazzo

In Naples, Rosa leads a contented family life with her husband Guglielmo, the owner of a garage, and two young children. One day, her world is thrown into a turmoil when her former fiancée Emilio appears from nowhere and reminds her of their idyllic romance before the war...   [More...]

Cento giorni a Palermo (1984)
Giuseppe Ferrara

In the spring of 1982, General Dalla Chiesa gives up his plans of early retirement and instead assumes the responsibilities of police chief in one of the most crime-ridden places in Europe, the Sicilian town of Palermo...   [More...]

Le Château de verre (1950)
René Clément

Evelyne Bertal could not be happier, living the kind of life most people would envy in Berne with her devoted husband Laurent, a lawyer...   [More...]

La Ciociara (1960)
Vittorio De Sica

In the summer of 1943, Rome is under constant bombardment. A young widow named Cesira flees the capital with her 13-year-old daughter, Rosetta, and returns to her home village in the mountainous Ciociaria region of Italy...   [More...]

Classe tous risques (1960)
Claude Sautet

Doggedly pursued by the police, seasoned gangster Abel Davos evades capture by fleeing to Italy with his wife Thérèse and their two young sons...   [More...]

Copie conforme (2010)
Abbas Kiarostami

A middle-aged French woman travels to Italy to attend a conference at which an English writer, James, is to promote his new book...   [More...]

Desiderio (1946)
Marcello Pagliero

Paola Previtali is a young woman from the country who makes a living as a prostitute in Rome. One day, she is badly shaken when she arrives at a spot where a desperate woman has recently fallen to her death, a suicide...   [More...]

Don't Look Now (1973)
Nicolas Roeg

John and Laura Baxter are a young couple who are both profoundly traumatised when their five-year-old daughter Christine drowns accidentally at their home...   [More...]

Due lettere anonime (1945)
Mario Camerini

Rome, 1943. Returning home on leave after serving on the Russian front, Bruno has made up his mind to marry his girlfriend Gina...   [More...]

L'Eclisse (1962)
Michelangelo Antonioni

In Rome, Vittoria has grown tired of her tepid love affair with Ricardo, a strait-laced ambassadorial aide, and suddenly decides to end the affair after three years of living together...   [More...]

Fabiola (1949)
Alessandro Blasetti

In the fourth century AD, the Roman Empire is crumbling and the growing cult of Christianity is to blame. A young Gaul, Rhual, is a Christian, but he must keep this a secret if he is to realise his dream of becoming a gladiator in Rome...   [More...]

Fantasma d'amore (1981)
Dino Risi

Whilst travelling in a bus in his home town of Pavia, Nino Monti, a successful lawyer, encounters an old woman who bears a striking resemblance to Anna Brigatti, a woman he was once madly in love with...   [More...]

Le Grand bleu (1988)
Luc Besson

Jacques Mayol and and Enzo Molinari are two men who have shared an intense passion for the sea since their childhood. Molinari, the current world free diving champion, coerces Mayol into competing against him in the next tournament...   [More...]

I Guappi (1974)
Pasquale Squitieri

In 1891, Nicola Bellizzi arrives in Naples with ambitions of becoming a lawyer but his plans change when his path crosses that of the feared racketeer Don Gaetano Frungillo...   [More...]

I'm Not Scared (2003)
Gabriele Salvatores

In 1978, 10-year-old Michele Amitrano lives with his impoverished family in a small town in Southern Italy. The acres of wheat fields in the surrounding countryside provide a happy playground for Michele and his gang...   [More...]

Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976)
Federico Fellini

The debauched life of Giacomo Casanova is legendary, a succession of erotic adventures with women who are no more to him than instruments of pleasure...   [More...]

Il Conformista (1970)
Bernardo Bertolucci

In 1930s Italy, Marcello Clerici makes the decision to join the Fascist secret police. Eager to prove himself, Clerici agrees to assassinate his former teacher Professor Quadri, an anti-Fascist intellectual who is now living in exile in Paris...   [More...]

Il Gattopardo (1963)
Luchino Visconti

In the 1860s, Sicily is in the vanguard of huge social and political changes that are sweeping across a fragmented Italy, changes that will result in the country's eventual unification after much loss of blood...   [More...]

L'Innocente (1976)
Luchino Visconti

In Italy towards the end of the 19th century, the wealthy Tullio Hermil pursues a passionate love affair with his aristocratic mistress Teresa Raffo whilst keeping up the impression that he is happily married...   [More...]



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