Roy Menarini's Il Grande Cinema Italiano

The story is the harried attempt of a Sicilian partisan, as part of the risorgimento, to reach Garibaldi's headquarters in Northern Italy, and to petition the revered revolutionary to rescue part of his besieged land. Along the way, the peasant hero encounters many colorful Italians, differing in class and age, and holding political opinions of ...

With 8 ½ Frederico Fellini leaves a self-portrait where dreams and reality are a mix. With help from a most excellent cast and unique scenery this self reflecting film is one of his master works.

A leftist professor wants the truth about two men killed during a hunting party; but the mafia, the Church and corrupt politicians don't want him to learn it.

Thanks to wartime smuggling Gioconda Perfetti, a roman fruit vendor, becomes very rich. She leaves her shop and moves to a magnificent villa which once belonged to a count. She also becomes involved with some very dubious characters who profit from her ignorance and cheat her out of her money.

A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiralling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.

In the huge steel factories in Terni (Umbria, Italy), two friends: Mario and Pietro, fight for the love of the same girl, Gina. Pietro dies because of a work accident at the factory. The other workers think Mario is responsible for the death of his friend. Mario, who is innocent, is forced to quit, but his love for Gina and his dedication to his...

About a group of Italian resistance fighters from Genoa and led by Commander Vento. They must seize a shipment of weapons destined for the German occupation.

A university student falls in love with a seamstress. But one day he meets a beautiful woman and things become complicated.

Chiuse le case di tolleranza, dopo l'emanazione della Legge Merlini, quattro prostitute romane restano senza occupazione. Aiutate da un protettore, decidono di aprire una trattoria, da usare come copertura, per poter riprendere a praticare la precedente attività di meretrici.

This Italian film version of Verdi's opera stars Sophia Loren on the screen, with Renata Tebaldi providing the vocals.

In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual w...

Nando Mericoni, baldo giovanotto di Trastevere e ballerino di tip-tap, ha il pallino dell'America e aspira soltanto a un viaggio negli Stati Uniti. Quello che poteva riuscire uno sketch di saporosa comicità è stato diluito in un film lungo di grana piuttosto grossolana. Segna, comunque, una svolta – e il decollo decisivo – nella carriera di Sordi.

A self-made woman, coming from humble means, travels to Turin to scout locations for her successful beauty salon chain. At the hotel, she encounters some upper-middle class bourgeoise women to whom she finds herself drawn into their friendships.

Four inseparable friends try to face their midlife crisis with daytrips and pranks at the expense of their families and the people around them.

Six separate episodes: would-be suicides discuss their despair. A provincial dance hall. An investigative reporter posing as a husband-to-be. A young unwed mother. Girl-watching techniques of Italian men. A glimpse into prostitution.

When her elderly mother is found dead under sordid circumstances, Delia returns to her native Naples for the first time in years to attend the funeral. Trying to piece together her estranged parent's secret life, she'll face the hidden memories that shaped her family history.

After several unsuccessful suicide attempts, Totò finds himself in an animal asylum.

Aldo Piscitello, a minor government clerk, is forced in 1934 to join the Fascist party. When the war comes, he finds himself able only to talk ineffectually in secret against Mussolini, even as his own son Giovanni is sent into battle. By the end of the war, Aldo has found the courage to stand up for his beliefs, but by then it is too late.

Without mentioning the reason, Venetian musician Enrico invites his ex-wife Valeria to visit him, and her heart is broken again during their last days together.

A 40 years old man, Alfonso, finally succeeds to marry a virgin, educate, beautiful and very catholic woman. But soon she, Regina, starts stressing him because she wants to be pregnant. When the stress is at its peak Regina at last gets pregnant. Once the goal is reached the man is put aside and dies.

A group of rogues steal a scroll granting its bearer the property of the land of Aurocastro in Apulia (south of Italy). They elect a shaggy knight, Brancaleone from Norcia, as their leader, and decide to get possession of this supposedly wealthy land. Many adventures will occurr during the journey.

The Art of Getting Along (Italian: L'arte di arrangiarsi) is a 1954 comedy film directed by Luigi Zampa and starring Alberto Sordi

Assunta and Michele are in love, but others come between them and jealousy arises. Assunta Spina stands out as an early landmark of naturalistic acting and a blueprint for the Italian Neorealist films to come.

A woman disappears during a Mediterranean boating trip. But during the search, her lover and her best friend become attracted to each other.

Mastro Geppetto is a poor carpenter with no wife and no children. The man is very lonely, and when trading a piece of wood with his colleague Mastero Cherry, he decides to build himself a puppet to make him company.

Un bambino di sette anni assiste ai drammi ed al disfacimento del proprio nucleo famigliare.

Sardinian shepherds Michele, Peppeddu encounter bandits. Michele evades police, sheep perish. Wrongly charged with murder, impoverished, Michele turns outlaw. He resorts to violence, banditry for survival, fueling a lawless spiral.

Among others, Ernesto returns to Turin after the war from a German POW camp; his household destroyed and family deceased, he tries making an honest living.

The French Colonel...who was forced even to torture! One of the many women...who stopped at nothing to win! The Algerian Street Boy...who became a rebel hero!

Women love handsome Antonio because they think of him as the perfect lover. But he has problems to fullfill this ideal and Barbara only notices his failures when they are married. When the town learns about his trouble they start laughing at him...

Bellissima is a satire of the film industry, and centers around a mother and daughter after the latter attends an audition.

Il sottoproletariato delle campagne toscane incarnato da un giovane Roberto Benigni.

Aging small-time conman Augusto works with two younger men: Roberto, who desires to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Carlo, nicknamed Picasso. Through a series of mishaps and personal entanglements, things go badly for Augusto.

Inspired by Boccaccio's novellas, each episode focuses on sex, love and seduction in Italy in the 1960s, an era of economic growth and major cultural changes.

l figlio di un impiegato ministeriale romano è ucciso per caso durante una rapina. Il brav'uomo prepara ed esegue una lenta, bieca, allucinata vendetta.

Giacinto lives with his wife, their ten children and various other family members in a shack on the hills of Rome. Some time ago he has lost his left eye while at work, and got a consistent sum of money from the insurance company, which he keeps hidden from the rest of the family. His whole life is now based on defending the money he sees as his...

Scoundrels are competing for 200,000 dollars hidden in a grave. The third Italian-Western film of a trilogy from director Sergio Leone gives Western films a new (bloody) color.

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

Gianni, Nicola and Antonio become close friends in 1944 while fighting the Nazis. After the end of the war, full of illusions, they settle down. The movie is a the story of the life of these three idealists and how they deal with the inevitable disillusionments of life.

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, ...

Immediately after the war, bandits attack a truck that is transporting newlyweds Michele and Giovanna and the accountant of an agricultural cooperative charged with bringing four million lire into office.

Menelaus is the king of Sparta and temporarily departs from his residence, leaving Helen, the queen of Sparta, without him. When Paris of Troy, ambassador and son of the king, arrives in Sparta, he kidnaps Helen and brings her to Troy where the two fall in love. The Greeks attempt to siege the city walls of Troy, but fail. The Greeks then place ...

Bruno Bonomo was a famous producer of B-movies in the ‘70s. After a long hiatus, Bonomo offers a screenplay to RAI centered on the figure of Italy’s prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, a subject so controversial that even the public television broadcaster refuses to produce it

A young woman takes care of the just-born child of her late mother. Sacrificing her engagement and studies along the way.

Writer/director/actor Nanni Moretti offers a three-part film diary which takes a sharply satiric look at Italian life.

Music, ballet, folk dances and mime eliciting the spirit of Naples across the ages are loosely tied together by the comedic wanderings and exploits of the Esposito family.

Stefano, a young restorer, is commissioned to save a controversial mural located in the church of a small, isolated village.

Casanova is a libertine, collecting seductions and sexual feats. But he is really interested in someone, and is he really an interesting person ? Is he really alive?

An Italian industrialist died in a plane crash. An accident or an assassination?

Martha Eggerth heads the cast of Casta Diva, but the central character is famed Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini, here played by American actor Phillips Holmes. Paying but scant attention the facts, the film concentrates on Bellini's colorful love life. Evidently the film went through several rewriting processes, as witness the curious performa...