After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to…
In 1930s Italy, a wealthy Jewish family tries to maintain their privileged lifestyle, hosting friends for tennis and parties at their villa. As anti-Semitism intensifies under Fascism, they must ultimately…
Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men….
During the bombing of Naples in World War II, a cynical businessman helps a naive prostitute, who spends the next two decades desperate to have him reciprocate her feelings.
A dying German magnate invites his youngest son and daughter-in-law home to discuss the future of the family’s shipbuilding empire. There, the daughter-in-law stumbles upon a secret of the family’s…
A young widow flees from Rome during WWII and takes her lonely twelve-year-old-daughter to her rural hometown but the horrors of war soon catch up with them.
Under provincial Italian law at the time, once a roof is erected, the occupants cannot be evicted from a building. This comedy follows the efforts of a family to erect…
Stylish, sophisticated and absolutely broke, Dino and Maria pursue a romance until they realize neither of them has any money, which forces the gold diggers to turn their attention to…
While on vacation in Rome, married American Mary Forbes becomes entangled in an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni Doria. As she prepares to leave Italy, Giovanni confesses his love…
When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end…
Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless…
In his first collaboration with renowned screenwriter and longtime partner Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica examines the cataclysmic consequences of adult folly on an innocent child. Heralding the pair’s subsequent…