FilmTV's The Best Italian Films

An episodic romantic film, built up with many stories instead of one main plot, that ponders the voids and decadence of high society. A classic film and upon it’s first night out a scandal. The 1960 film by Federico Fellini is named the film that split up his earlier neo-realist films from the art films he did later in his career.

La storia vede protagonista Adriana (Stefania Sandrelli), ragazza di provincia che vuole farsi strada nell'ambiente romano dello spettacolo e allo scopo non esita ad usare il proprio fascino e il proprio corpo. La sua ricerca la porterà a conoscere numerosi personaggi che con maggiore o minore fortuna fanno parte di quel mondo. (from Wikipedia.it)

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.

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.

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 man and his son search for a stolen bicycle vital for his job.

Ale, a deeply disturbed young man subject to seizures benignly decides to murder members of his dysfunctional family for altruistic reasons.

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

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

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.

Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.

A chief of detectives, homicide section, kills his mistress and deliberately leaves clues to prove his own responsibility for the crime.

Six vignettes follow the Allied invasion from July 1943 to winter 1944, from Sicily north to Venice.

Open City is a landmark in film history. Filmed in secrecy during the Nazi occupation of Italy, the film shows a realistic portrayal of the underground resistance in Italy in 1945. The film has strong impacting imagery with it’s mix of fiction and reality that strengthened Italian Neo-realism and the film industry.

This Mafia film is the greatest and last work from Italian director Sergio Leone. Taking place in 1920 to 1960 America the film follows a group Jewish gangsters from childhood into their glory years of the prohibition and as they reunite in their later years.

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.

Back home, Glauco, an industrial designer, finds his wife in bed with a serious headache. She has left him dinner but it is cold and Glauco decides to prepare himself a gourmet meal...

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...

A documentary ostensibly about Anna, a young drug addict taken off the streets by one of the filmmakers. Through her they attempt to explore the social issues from their hippie perspective, instead they create a revealing, uncomfortable self-portrait and inadvertently raise questions about documentary film-making.

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...

Having recently been uprooted to Milan, Rocco and his four brothers each look for a new way in life when a prostitute comes between Rocco and his brother Simone.

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

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

Four corrupted fascist libertines round up 9 teenage boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual torture.

Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna as they plan to get rid of her older husband.

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.

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

Ferdinando Cefalù is desperate to marry his cousin, Angela, but he is married to Rosalia and divorce is illegal in Italy. To get around the law, he tries to trick his wife into having an affair so he can catch her and murder her, as he knows he would be given a light sentence for killing an adulterous woman. He persuades a painter to lure his wi...

A wealthy woman becomes obsessed with humanitarianism when her young son dies after committing suicide.

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

A young woman meets a vital young man, but their love affair is doomed because of the man's materialistic nature.

A man wanders aimlessly away from his town, away from the woman he loves, emotionally and socially inactive.

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...

An English pianist living in Rome witnesses the brutal murder of his psychic neighbor. With the help of a tenacious young reporter, he tries to discover the killer using very unconventional methods. The two are soon drawn into a shocking web of dementia and violence.

In 1950, 28-year-old outlaw Salvatore Giuliano is found gunned down in a Sicilian courtyard. Little is as it seems. The film moves back and forth between the late 1940s, when Giuliano and other reprobates were recruited by separatist politicians to do their fighting, and the days leading up to and following Giuliano's death.

Two neighbours — a persecuted journalist and a resigned housewife — forge a strong bond on the day of Adolf Hitler's historic 1938 visit to Rome.

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.

As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life.

Domenico and Antonietta are two suburban Italian youths who meet while seeking "a job for life" from a big city corporation.

A group of men hire some prostitutes and go to a villa in the countryside. There, they engage in group sex and resolve to eat themselves to death.

In Italy, the gambler and professor of poetry Daniele Dominici arrives in the seaside town of Rimini and is hired to teach for four months in the local high school replacing another teacher. His relationship with his partner Monica is in crisis and he spends most of the time with his new acquaintances and gamblers Giorgio, Marcello and Gerardo. ...

Avant Garde piece from Carmelo Bene. A series of vignettes drive a whirl of sounds, images and poetry - is it horror, is it comedy, make your own mind up.

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

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

In an industrial area, unstable Giuliana attempts to cope with life by starting an affair with a co-worker at the plant her husband manages.

An inside look at Italy's modern-day crime families, the Camorra in Naples and Caserta. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano.

A day in the life of an unfaithful married couple and their steadily deteriorating relationship.

Set in Bertolucci's ancestral region of Emilia, the film chronicles the lives of two men during the political turmoils that took place in Italy in the first half on the 20th century.

Michele, a young mathematics professor, moves into a new flat. Lonely, depressed and neurotic, he spends his time obsessively monitoring the couples around him, especially his neighbors, a young pair struggling to make their relationship work. When Bianca, a new teacher at the local high school, enters his life, Michele finds himself falling in ...

BLOW-UP is the story of a successful fashion photographer, Thomas (David Hemmings), who, whilst scouting for fresh subjects in a park one afternoon, photographs a mysterious couple in 'flagrante delicto.' Upon returning to his studio loft later that day, he develops the pictures and discovers that he has inadvertently stumbled upon a murder.