Mamma Roma
Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a middle-aged prostitute who attempts to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. Filmed in the great tradition of Italian neorealism, Mamma Roma offers an unflinching look at the...
Mafioso
As one of the earliest films about the mafia's influence over the personal lives of those involved, Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso also established the way humor is used in gangster movies as respite from tragic, violent circumstances. In it, Antonio...
Fellini 8 1/2
One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 (Otto e Mezzo) turns one man's artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is a director whose film-and life-is collapsing...
Romeo & Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a 1968 British-Italian romance film based on the tragic play of the same name (1591–95) by William Shakespeare.
The film was directed and co-written by Franco Zeffirelli, and stars Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. It won...
Umberto D.
Shot on location with a cast of nonprofessional actors, Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist masterpiece follows Umberto D., an elderly pensioner, as he struggles to make ends meet during Italy’s postwar economic boom. Alone except for his dog, Flike, Umberto...
L’avventura
L'Avventura (English: The Adventure) is a 1960 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti, and Lea Massari. Developed from a story by Antonioni, the film is about a young woman's disappearance during a Mediterranean...
Life Is Beautiful – La vita è bella
Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vita è bella) is a 1997 Italian tragicomic comedy-drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian book shop owner, who must employ his fertile imagination to shield...
Bicycle Thieves – Ladri di biciclette
Hailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, Vittorio De Sica’s Academy Award–winning Bicycle Thieves defined an era in cinema. In postwar, poverty-stricken Rome, a man, hoping to support his desperate family with a new...
Cinema Paradiso
Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Cinema Paradiso is the beautiful, enchanting story of a young boy’s lifelong love affair with the movies. Set in an Italian village, Salvatore finds himself enchanted by the flickering images at...
Baaria
From the director of Cinema Paradiso comes a stirring, unforgettable new epic of Italian life as you’ve never seen it before. The course of a lifetime reflects the evolution of a country as young Peppino takes work as a...
Mediterraneo
Directed by Gabriele Salvatores, Mediterraneo is a 1991 Italian film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1991. The film is set during World War II, and regards a group of Italian soldiers who become...
Human Capital – Il capitale umano
Human Capital begins at the end, as a cyclist is run off the road by a careening SUV the night before Christmas Eve. As details emerge of the events leading up to the accident, the lives of the well-to-do...
L’eclisse
L'Eclisse (English: Eclipse) is a 1962 Italian drama film written and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Alain Delon and Monica Vitti. Filmed on location in Rome and Verona, L'Eclisse is about a young woman who breaks up with...
The Leopard – Il gattopardo
An epic on the grandest scale, Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (Il gattopardo) re-creates, with nostalgia, drama, and opulence, the tumultuous years of Italy’s Risorgimento, when the aristocracy lost its grip and the middle classes rose and formed a unified,...
La Strada
Federico Fellini had been making films for a few years, but with the 1954 release of La strada, the Italian director set himself on his way to becoming one of international cinema's household names. A delicate, immensely moving tale...
The Best Of Youth – La meglio gioventù
A MUST-SEE! 368 minutes of Italian TV miniseries--yes, that is indeed six hours' worth--comes unspooling in The Best of Youth, a stirring and beautiful experience.
The Conformist – Il conformista
The Conformist (Italian: Il conformista) is a 1970 political drama directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. The screenplay was written by Bertolucci based on the 1951 novel The Conformist by Alberto Moravia.
Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy (Rome Open City / Paisan / Germany Year Zero)
Rome, Open City (Italian: Roma città aperta) is a 1945 Italian neorealist drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. In its English subtitled release it was named, Open City.
Paisan (Italian: Paisà) is a 1946 Italian neorealist war drama film directed...
La dolce vita
La Dolce Vita (Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life") is a 1960 Italian comedy-drama film written and directed by Federico Fellini. The film follows Marcello Rubini, a journalist writing for gossip magazines, over seven days and...
The Great Beauty – La grande bellezza
The Great Beauty (Italian: La grande bellezza) is a 2013 Italian film co-written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino. Filming took place in Rome starting on 9 August 2012. It premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it was...
