Roy Menarini's Il Grande Cinema Italiano

The film presents the tale of Agnese Ascalone, daughter of prominent miner Vincenzo Ascalone, and takes place in a small town in Sicily. Agnese is seduced by her sister Matilde's fiancé, and has a tryst with him for which she confesses and tries to repent, only to be discovered by her mother and father.

During hard times, a vivacious girl looks for an office job in the hope of landing a rich man.The director of the bank she works at flirts with her while not at first revealing his identity so she rejects him.

A troubled and neurotic Italian Countess betrays her entire country for a self-destructive love affair with an Austrian Lieutenant.

Gianni è un modesto edicolante romano. Ogni anno, coi soldi risparmiati, si concede un viaggetto godere della bella vita locale. In occasione di una visita a Napoli, viene scambiato per un noto viveur, il signor Max Veraldo.

Gaby is expelled from school after a married teacher commits suicide after telling her he can't live without her. Though she has done nothing, she is punished for his act.

A new starlet is discovered and has ups and downs in Italian films.

An anthology presents three storylines, all set in the Italian town of Treviso: A husband pretends to be impotent as a cover for having an affair; a bank clerk abandons his wife for his mistress, but the rest of the town's husbands become jealous and unite to conspire against them; and local men all seduce a promiscuous young woman, but when her...

Sole is the first film by the great Alessandro Blasetti and bears a complex relationship to the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes, a seminal event in Fascist political history.

A neorealist tribute to the Italian resistance fighters of World War II.

Peppe, formerly a boxer, organizes the break-in of a pawnshop. Tiberio, an unemployed photographer, Mario, a receiver, the Sicilian Michele and Capannelle, an ex-jockey, are the other members of the gang. Though they are advised by Dante, a retired burglar, the task is not so easy...

Roberto, a shy law student in Rome, meets Bruno, a forty-year-old exuberant, capricious man, who takes him for a drive through the Roman and Tuscany countries in the summer. When their journey starts to blend into their daily lives though, the pair’s newfound friendship is tested.

Lieutenant Mario Ludovici, an army officer, gets himself transferred to a Libyan post when his romance with society girl Cristiana goes on the rocks. Ludovici is looked upon as a weakling by Captain Santelia, the hard-boiled commander of the troops, but after a bitter campaign against a rebel tribe Ludovici proves his true worth and returns as c...

A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.

With this poetically fabulous film classic Italian director Federico Fellini makes a world wide success of emotional melodrama and a highlight of the Italian Neo-realism movement.

After the end of WWII, a young Lithuanian woman and a young Italian man from Stromboli impulsively marry, but married life on the island is more demanding than she can accept.

A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the staff of the school are actually a coven of witches bent on chaos and destruction.

John Malkovich and Debra Winger play Port and Kit Moresby, who flee New York for North Africa, where they hope to find mystical truths that will reignite the spark of their marriage. Instead they lose their moral bearings (with help from a friend, played by Campbell Scott, who has an affair with Kit) while traveling deeper into the Sahara.

Two workers at an isolated Alpine dam grow closer when an avalanche traps them in their hut without power or contact.

A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger (Terence Stamp) arrives, makes love to every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.

A comedy of errors where floundering pediatrician Pietro takes a job as an orphanage health inspector to pay for the debts of his high-spending girlfriend Loletta, only to end up mistakenly engaged with Lilli, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, and pursued by lovestruck 18-year-old orphan Teresa Venerdì.

In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.

The beautiful Thaïs Galitzy plays Vera, a Slavic countess, a seductress who drags married men to the brink of ruin. When she seduces the husband of her best friend, all involved meet a nasty fate.

A bored, retired rock star sets out to find his father's executioner, an ex-Nazi war criminal who is a refugee in the U.S.

After rescuing a young boy named Leo from a brutal gang, the noble outlaw Za la Mort discovers the child is the heir to a massive fortune. He and his loyal partner Za la Vie must protect Leo from the Grey Rats, a ruthless criminal syndicate led by the villainous Grigione who are desperate to steal the inheritance. The chase leads them through th...

In the first Italian film to be shot in color, Totò portrays a musician named Antonio Scannagatti who strongly hopes to sell his composition, "Epopea italiana", to Tiscordi, who is one of the most important Italian impresarios.

Boris Karloff hosts a trio of horror stories about a stalked call girl, a vampire-like monster who preys on his family, and a nurse who is haunted by her ring's rightful owner.

The film portrays the comic adventures of a group of summertime travellers. Produced at the height of the fascist era, Treno popolare was nonetheless free of propaganda, and featured the first film score by the legendary composer Nino Rota.

25-year-old philosophy major Marta faces the ugly truth for many young Italians — a complete lack of career opportunities. While babysitting for single mother Sonia, she starts to work as a telemarketer, experiencing first-hand the fanatical and exploitative rat-race culture pushed on employees while quickly rising through the ranks of the compa...

Everybody Go Home (Italian: Tutti a casa) is a 1960 Italian film directed by Luigi Comencini. It features an international cast including the U.S. actors Martin Balsam, Alex Nicol and the Franco-Italian Serge Reggiani. Nino Manfredi was rejected for the starring role because Alberto Sordi wanted it.

A man and his son take an allegorical stroll through life with a talking bird that spouts social and political philosophy.

Carmine Gallone and Amleto Palermi’s The Last Days of Pompeii 1926 stages in sumptuous colour tinting the epic fall of the ancient city buried by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption. Adapted from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s love story, the film was innovative in its special effects and an early major box-office hit. A beautiful tinted restoration print was prep...

Giulia and Carlo have been happy together for three years, but Giulia's announcement that she is pregnant sends him into a secret panic. Terrified at his imminent entry into the adult world of irreversible responsibilities, Carlo finds himself tempted by a bewitching 18-year-old girl, Francesca, whom he meets by chance at a wedding. The possibil...

A young Parisian woman begins a sordid affair with a middle-aged American businessman whom lays out ground rules that their clandestine relationship will be based only on sex.

Umberto D. is an Italian surrealistic film criticizing corporations. A film from 1952 by Italian director Vittorio De Sica.

Bruno, a chauffeur having some problem in keeping a job, meets one morning Mariuccia, a taxi driver’s daughter working as a perfumery’s shop assistant, and trying to impress her, pretending to be rich, uses his employer’s car to took her on a trip to the lakes, but things don’t work as planned and to conquer Mariuccia’s hearth won’t be so easy…

Political activist Salvatore returns to his native Sicily and stirs up trouble among the peasants, urging them to confront the Mafia and demand the right to plough their own fields. The peasants refuse to help him, and Salvatore is marked by the Mafia as a troublemaker.

The story begins with a scientist creating a device shaped like a man that can be remote-controlled by a machine. The mechanical man possess super-human speed and strength. The scientist is killed however by a gang of criminals, led by a woman named Mado, who wish to get the instructions for building the mechanical man. The criminals are capture...

A mad scientist captures young women and drains their blood, in order to keep alive an ancient, evil duchess.

Along a rocky, barren coastline, Jesus begins teaching, primarily using parables. He attracts disciples; he's stern, brusque, and demanding. His parables often take on the powers that be, so he and his teachings come to the attention of the Pharisees, the chief priests, and elders. They conspire to have him arrested, beaten, tried, and crucified...

The aging, conservative population of a small, sleepy village in the Italian Alps are surprised to see that a former French professor has settled there with his young wife and their three children to produce goat cheese, in order to escape the wrongs of civilization. At first they are suspicious of his unconventional ideas and lifestyle, then ar...

This deceptively simple tale of a bored English couple (George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman) travelling to Italy to find a buyer for a house inherited from an uncle is transformed by Roberto Rossellini into a passionate story of cruelty and cynicism as their marriage disintegrates around them.

The story of Mussolini's secret lover, Ida Dalser, and their son Albino.

A satire of modern society or perhaps just a funny tale for children, depending on your age, mood or liking. Recounting the adventures of the last in a line of Supermen, the film pokes fun at the processes that lie behind advertising, politics and our consumer society.

Silvio, partigiano ed idealista, nell'Italia della Resistenza, prima, e del boom economico, poi, deve fare i conti con l'amoralità ed il materialismo della realtà che lo circonda.

A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.

A character study of five young men at crucial turning points in their lives in a small town in Italy.

Ispirato al romanzo "Il poema dei lunatici" di Ermanno Cavazzoni. Due uomini si aggirano per la Pianura Padana, ascoltando la voce della luna che sale dai pozzi.

Felice Della Pietà is indifferent to money and the turbulences of life. His wife Sylvia simulates suicide in order not to live in poverty with him.

An epic portrait of late Sixties America, as seen through the portrayal of two of its children: anthropology student Daria (who's helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert) and dropout Mark (who's wanted by the authorities for allegedly killing a policeman during a student riot)...

Set in apocalyptic Palermo peopled by ignorant, inbred, flatulent gluttons and deformed Mafiosi, a dark comedy which centers on a poor family of three-middle aged brothers who are coerced, by local Mafia honchos, into hiding a mysterious old man known as the Uncle from Brooklyn in their home.