Paisan (1946)

Germany, Year Zero

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.

It Happened at the Police Station

Everyday all kind of people pass through a Police Station, especially if it is downtown. Today, however, the chief of police has bought his first car and he has decided to test it with his wife going to Ostia. But first a theatrical company sent out of the theatre, last Alfredo Todini arrested while walking wearing a gown and in the mean a series of human cases, ranging from the pathetic to the funny one, get in the way of his wish.

The Scavengers

Via the Chicago Reader: "After World War II an Italian soldier returns to his hometown near the Alps and, unable to find a job, hooks up with a crotchety hermit who scavenges buried shells and bombs for scrap metal."

The Conspirators

Rome, 1825. Bishop Rivarola and Colonel Nardoni are in charge of suppressing the liberal revolution. Shoemaker Cornacchia got the information that the liberal Filippo Spada is a spy and is going to denounce his revolutionary companions.

Journey to Italy

Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.

The Match

One football match on a dirt pitch near Rome becomes a day of reckoning as a young player, his coach and their team's owner wrestle internal demons.

And the Ship Sails On

In 1914, a cruise ship sets sail from Naples to spread the ashes of beloved opera singer Edmea Tetua near Erimo, the isle of her birth. During the voyage, the eclectic array of passengers discovers a group of Serbian refugees aboard the vessel. Peace and camaraderie abound until the ship is descended upon by an Austrian flagship. The Serbians are forced to board it, but naturally they resist, igniting a skirmish that ends in destruction.

Primary Colors

In this adaptation of the best-selling roman à clef about Bill Clinton's 1992 run for the White House, the young and gifted Henry Burton is tapped to oversee the presidential campaign of Governor Jack Stanton. Burton is pulled into the politician's colorful world and looks on as Stanton -- who has a wandering eye that could be his downfall -- contends with his ambitious wife, Susan, and an outspoken adviser, Richard Jemmons.

The Apparition

Jacques Mayano, a French journalist who has lived a traumatic experience, is recruited by the Vatican to be part of a task force that must investigate the veracity of a supernatural apparition allegedly happened in a small French village.

Shoeshine

Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.

Olé

Two quarreling teachers vie for the same woman. In the same time the two will have to accompany a class on a trip in Spain.

La Terra Trema

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.

Stromboli

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.

Diary of a Country Priest

An inexperienced, sickly priest shows up in the rural French community of Ambricourt, where he joins the community's clergy. But the locals don't take kindly to the priest, and his ascetic ways and unsociable demeanor make him an outcast. During Bible studies at the nearby girls school, he is continually mocked by his students. Then his attempt to intervene in a family feud backfires into a scandal. His failures, compounded with his declining health, begin to erode his faith.

Letter from an Unknown Woman

A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. As she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past.

Bellissima

Film director Blasetti is looking for a little girl for his new movie. Along with other mothers, Maddelena takes her daughter to Cinecittà, hoping she’ll be selected and become a star. She is ready to sacrifice anything for little Maria.

Funeral Parade of Roses

In 1960s Tokyo, Gonda owns a bar in which the gay, cross-dresser, and trans scenes meet. Gonda is in a relationship with the madam of the bar, Leda. As the younger Eddie starts a passionate affair with Gonda, she ignites the jealousy of Leda, unaware of another kind of history between them.

L'Atalante

Newly married couple Juliette and ship captain Jean struggle through marriage as they travel on the L'Atalante along with the captain's first mate and a cabin boy.

Viridiana

Viridiana is preparing to start her life as a nun when she is sent, somewhat unwillingly, to visit her aging uncle, Don Jaime. He supports her; but the two have met only once. Jaime thinks Viridiana resembles his dead wife. Viridiana has secretly despised this man all her life and finds her worst fears proven when Jaime grows determined to seduce his pure niece. Viridiana becomes undone as her uncle upends the plans she had made to join the convent.

A Man Escaped

A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from prison.

Bicycle Thieves

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 he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.

Gilda

A gambler discovers an old flame while in Argentina, but she's married to his new boss.

The Hidden Fortress

In feudal Japan, during a bloody war between clans, two cowardly and greedy peasants, soldiers of a defeated army, stumble upon a mysterious man who guides them to a fortress hidden in the mountains.

Accattone

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

Miracle on 34th Street

Kris Kringle, seemingly the embodiment of Santa Claus, is asked to portray the jolly old fellow at Macy's following his performance in the Thanksgiving Day parade. His portrayal is so complete that many begin to question if he truly is Santa Claus, while others question his sanity.

Murder by Death

Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.

L'Avventura

Claudia and Anna join Anna's lover, Sandro, on a boat trip to a remote volcanic island. When Anna goes missing, a search is launched. In the meantime, Sandro and Claudia become involved in a romance despite Anna's disappearance, though the relationship suffers from guilt and tension.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

Il Sorpasso

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.

The Leopard

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. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.

Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.

Summer Wars

Teenage math whiz Kenji Koiso agrees to take a summer job at the Nagano hometown of his crush, Natsuki. When he arrives, he finds that her family have reunited to celebrate the 90th birthday of their matriarch. His job: pretend to be Natsuki's fiancé. Meanwhile, his attempt to solve a mathematical equation causes a parallel world's collision with Earth.

Parallel Mothers

Two unmarried women who have become pregnant by accident and are about to give birth meet in a hospital room: Janis, in her late-thirties, unrepentant and happy; Ana, a teenager, remorseful and frightened.

Notorious

In order to help bring Nazis to justice, U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin recruits Alicia Huberman, the American daughter of a convicted German war criminal, as a spy. As they begin to fall for one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of Alexander Sebastian, a Nazi hiding out in Brazil. When Sebastian becomes serious about his relationship with Alicia, the stakes get higher, and Devlin must watch her slip further undercover.

Possession

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

Ben-Hur

A falsely accused nobleman survives years of slavery to take vengeance on his best friend who betrayed him.

Ghost Ship

After discovering a passenger ship missing since 1962 floating adrift on the Bering Sea, salvagers claim the vessel as their own. Once they begin towing the ghost ship towards harbor, a series of bizarre occurrences happen and the group becomes trapped inside the ship, which they soon learn is inhabited by a demonic creature.

8½

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

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

Caligula

After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.

Alone With Her Dreams

Set in the late 1960s, the film explores the issues of immigration, community values and family devotion through the eyes of a young girl, Lucia, who is left behind with her grandmother while her parents emigrate to France to find work. Lucia pains to be with her family as she struggles to learn her role in the tiny, traditional village under the watchful guidance of her stern grandmother.

The Fight for Rome

A Roman noble, Cethegus, tries to start a war, setting the Ostrogoths and their Queen, Amalasuntha, against the Byzantine Emperor Justinian; Cethegus wants to swoop in after they have destroyed each other and create a new Roman Empire from their combined kingdoms; however, he does not factor into his plans the vagaries of love and the personal integrity of the people in both kingdoms.

The Order

For centuries, a secret Order of priests has existed within the Church. A renegade priest, Father Alex Bernier, is sent to Rome to investigate the mysterious death of one of the Order's most revered members. Following a series of strangely similar killings, Bernier launches an investigation that forces him to confront unimaginable evil.

Tea with Mussolini

In 1930s fascist Italy, adolescent Luca just lost his mother. His father, a callous businessman, sends him to be taken care of by British expatriate Mary Wallace. Mary and her cultured friends - including artist Arabella, young widow Elsa, and archaeologist Georgie - keep a watchful eye over the boy. But the women's cultivated lives take a dramatic turn when Allied forces declare war on Mussolini.

Pater familias

Plot unavailable

Brothers of the Night

Soft boys by day, kings by night. The film follows a group of young Bulgarian Roma who come to Vienna looking for freedom and a quick buck. They sell their bodies as if that's all they had. What comforts them, so far from home, is the feeling of being together. But the nights are long and unpredictable.

Mahogany

An aspiring designer from the slums of Chicago puts herself through fashion school in the hopes of becoming one of the world's top designers. Her ambition leads her to Rome spurring a choice between the man she loves or her newfound success.

Before the Night

The life and times of Pippo Fava, a Sicilian journalist who fought the Mafia through his local newspaper in the '70s and early '80s, meeting an untimely end.

Gladiator

After the death of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, his devious son takes power and demotes Maximus, one of Rome's most capable generals who Marcus preferred. Eventually, Maximus is forced to become a gladiator and battle to the death against other men for the amusement of paying audiences.

Obsession

A wealthy New Orleans businessman becomes obsessed with a young woman who resembles his late wife.

House of Cards

In 1960s Paris, an American boxer stumbles upon an international fascist conspiracy that aims to create a new world order.

The Slave

The decurion Randus holds himself so well in the command of his troops, that Caesar promotes him to centurion. He is subsequently sent to Egypt, to keep Cesar informed on the actions and intentions of co-triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus - a man too rich, and ambitious, for Caesar's comfort. A fateful sea trip from Egypt to Rome forces Randus in captivity by mercenary troops, and leads a revolt by which he gets freedom for himself, and all the other slaves. Through an amulet he received from his late mother, a man who had fought by Spartacus' side, identifies the young man as Spartacus' and Varinia's son. At first reluctant to accept this story about his origins, Randus will be forced by the circumstances to repeat the feat of his father, twenty years later.

The Sicilian Clan

An ambitious mobster plans an elaborate diamond heist while seducing the daughter-in-law of a ruthless mob patriarch as a determined police commissioner closes in on all of them.

I Vicerè

In late 19th-century Sicily, the noble Uzeda family—whose lineage dates back to the ancient viceroys that ruled those lands—fights to preserve its waning power in the face of the newly unified Italian regime.

Léolo

The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.

The Best of Youth

After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.

Titus

Titus Andronicus returns from the wars and sees his sons and daughters taken from him, one by one. Shakespeare's goriest and earliest tragedy.

Malena

During WWII, a teenage boy discovering himself becomes love-stricken by Malèna, a sensual woman living in a small, narrow-minded Italian town.

Dolce... calda Lisa

80's Italian sleaze with the luscious Claudia Rocchi, Italian porno regular Guia Lauri Filzi, and softcore actress Annj Goren. The film is about Lisa, a young pretty wife stuck with an older husband who cannot satisfy her sexually nor in other ways. She becomes bored with her everyday life and cheats on her husband sleeping with another older man. Still not satisfied she hooks up with a rich man (Enzo Fisichella) who introduces her to a young stud (Mario Cutini) and his two lesbian playmates (Guia Lauri Filzi and Annj Goren). At the party Lisa is taken by the young man while the others watch. This seems to do the trick for Lisa. Her curiosity for the young man deepens and she wants to see him again. However, it turns out that he is a very rude partner instead of the gentle lover that she wanted. Shot in Rome, Italy.

A Brief Season

A young American agent living in Rome meets with a beautiful Swedish translator.

Cinema Paradiso

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

A Room with a View

When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperon Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guests Mr Emerson and son George step in to remedy the situation. Meeting the Emersons could change Lucy's life forever but, once back in England, how will her experiences in Tuscany affect her marriage plans?

The Body

An ancient skeleton has been discovered in Jerusalem in a rich man's tomb. Colouration of the wrist and leg bones indicates the cause of death was crucifiction. other signs, include a gold coin bearing the marks of Pontius Pilate and faint markings around the skull, lead authorities to suspect that these could be the bones of Jesus Christ. Politicians, clerics, religious extremists and those using terror as a means to an end, find their beliefs and identities tested while risking their lives to unearth the truth.....

Street Angel

A spirited young woman finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter.

At War for Love

It's 1943 and World War II is raging in Europe. In New York, Arturo and Flora the daughter of a restaurant owner are in love, but she is promised in marriage to the son of a Mafia boss. There is a way around this, but to be able to marry Flora, Arturo needs to get permission from her father, who lives in a village in Sicily. Arturo doesn't have any money, so the only way he can get to Sicily is to enlist in the U.S. Army, which is preparing for a landing on the island.

Salvatore Giuliano

Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano's bullet-riddled corpse is found facedown in a courtyard in Castelvetrano, a handgun and rifle by his side. Local and international press descend upon the scene, hoping to crack open the true story behind the death of this young man, who, at the age of twenty-seven, had already become Italy’s most wanted criminal and celebrated hero.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Rome, Italy. After committing a heinous crime, a senior police officer exposes evidence incriminating him because his moral commitment prevents him from circumventing the law and the social order it protects.

Dear Diary

Nanni Moretti recalls in his diary three slice of life stories characterized by a sharply ironic look: in the first one he wanders through a deserted Rome, in the second he visits a reclusive friend on an island, and in the last he has to grapple with an unknown illness.

La Dolce Vita

Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

My Own Private Idaho

In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Henry IV," Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike's estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.

Lost in Florence

Eric Lazard is a heartbroken former college football star who gets involved in a dangerous Florentine sport and a local woman, Stephanie, while visiting his cousin Anna, who lives in Italy and teaches the Italian language to foreigners.

The Mafia Kills Only in Summer

While Arturo tries to gain the love of Flora, he witnesses the history of Sicily from 1969 to 1992, miraculously dodging the crimes of the Mafia and supporting as a journalist the heroic struggle of the judges and policemen who fought this infamous organization.

Baaria

Giuseppe Tornatore traces three generations of a Sicilian family in in the Sicilian town of Bagheria (known as Baarìa in the local Sicilian dialect), from the 1930s to the 1980s, to tell the story of the loves, dreams and delusions of an unusual community.

Two Women

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.

Cellini: A Violent Life

The story of Benvenuto Cellinin (1500-1571), a soldier and one of the most important craftsmen and artists of Renaissance Italy whose life was marked by many achievements and adventures, but also crimes. There is also the mini-series version consisted of three 90 minutes episodes, broadcasted by RaiDue.