Directory of World Cinema: Italy

Peppino Impastato, an activist in 1970s Sicily, used radio to defy the mafia's reign. His bold defiance led to his murder by the mob, exposing society's silence on organized crime.

The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth-century Italy as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.

The murder of a wealthy countess triggers a chain reaction of brutal killings in the surrounding bay area as several unscrupulous characters try to seize her large estate.

A band of Mexican gunrunners employed by a revolutionary General accept an American mercenary into their gang, unaware of his true intentions.

The potentially unhinged daughter of a British politician is accused of killing her hedonistic neighbor after she witnesses the murder in a dream.

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

A anarchist leader (Fulvio) wishes to retire, as he is old and tired. He tries to hide himself, but his friends find him and insist he carries on helping them.

A young father and his two children struggle to find harmony after his wife leaves them for another man.

Nando Moriconi is a young Italian living in Rome. He is fond for everything coming from the United States. He tries to speak American-English, to wear clothes he thinks Americans wear, to walk like John Wayne, and to eat cornflakes with ketchup - His life is a parody of the real American way of life that he could not get. Nando's not-so-secret dream is to visit the USA, so he climbs up to the Coliseum and threats to commit suicide if the American Embassy does not give him the visa. But at this point Nando is very well known as a 'crazy-for-USA' boy and the troubles he provoked will not help him.

Anna is a nurse and a nun, whose history catches up on her.

Nanni Moretti takes a comic look at the ebbs and flows of his life as he becomes a father for the first time. He struggles with distractions while trying to make a documentary of the Italian national elections.

A seminary student, Giacomo Vigetti, is convicted by the Papal State of seducing a young girl. He is forced to flee and takes refuge with an excommunicated priest. Unfortunately, the priest was excommunicated for experimenting with the black arts. And soon Giacomo wishes they'd never met.

Set in Sardinia, a barren and disconsolate land, where Rosalia, a poor young mother, entrusts her only son, Anania, to the natural father, who is well-off and already married. The years pass. Rosalia ages in misery, Anania becomes an adult and is about to marry. He returns to the country in order to find his mother and invite her to the wedding, but his fiancée does not appreciate this. Rosalia is abandoned once again...

Assunta Spina is a tragedy set in Naples at the beginning of the twentieth century. Assunta and Michele are in love but others come between them and there is much jealousy. They fight and Michele is sent to prison for two years for assault. Nevertheless, because Assunta still loves Michele she is vulnerable when Federigo offers to help Michele but only if Assunta becomes his mistress. Michele is released early from prison, finds Assunta and Federigo together and kills Federigo. When the police arrive, Assunta takes the blame for Michele's crime.

A contingent of Italian prisoners of war arrive on a train from Germany after World War II to Turin. The city where Ernesto lives has been bombed, his mother is dead and his sister has gone missing.

In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.

Annamaria, an ex-prostitute, takes her young daughter from convent school with her on a summer vacation. She introduces herself like a widow just to be accepted by people in the Italy of the '50s. She is surrounded by new friends and people show to love her. But some days after their arrival in the Italian Riviera, a former client recognizes her and reveals the hidden secret. People immediately become hostile. None wants her in the hotel. Supposed friends disappear. She's isolated. The people's hypocrisy will explode in entire contradiction later, when Annamaria becomes intimate friend with a rich respectable man.

An Italian epic that follows the lives of two brothers from the 1960s to the 2000s.

In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.

A motley quintet of inept small-time thieves attempt the burglary of a local pawnshop in this Italian farce.

A veteran bounty hunter and would-be senator is tasked by a railroad baron with hunting down a crafty, knife-wielding Mexican peasant accused of the rape-and-murder of a young girl.

An American writer vacationing in Rome attempts to unmask a serial killer he witnessed in the act of an attempted murder, and who is now hunting him and his girlfriend.

Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.

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.

Decades after being executed for witchcraft, vengeful Princess Asa Vajda and her fiendish servant are resurrected and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of Asa Vajda's beautiful look-alike descendant Princess Katia.