1940s Italian Movies

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.

During the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.

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.

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.

A group of struggling artists, poets, and musicians struggle to survive in squalor without giving up their artistic ideals.

Among others, Ernesto returns to Turin after the war from a German POW camp; his household destroyed and family deceased, he tries making an honest living.

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

Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder.

Six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley as American military personnel interact with a variety of Italian locals over eighteen months in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces retreat.

Birdaghin is a dancer at La Scala in Milan whose rapid success also quickly goes to her head. Fortunately, everything will be fine.

The tale of two fish in love, threatened by an octopus and saved by an eel.

In impoverished post-war Rome, a gang of young thieves is lead by Stefano, the son of an illustrious professor. The police suspects that the criminals are actually university students; inspector Mariani, a young World War II veteran, enrolls and tries to find out more. He falls for a pretty fellow student, Luisa, but she is the sister of the gang leader...

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.

A struggling woman and a black American soldier fall in love in post-World War II Italy.

In Milan, an unwed mother, forced to flee from her town because of the scandal, meets a doctor who falls in love with her and marries her. But the couple's relationship breaks down almost immediately: the husband is unable to leave behind the woman's past and can not stand a son not his. So Dina, in an attempt to readjust the rapport, entrusts the child to the care of the mother of her seducer (meanwhile deceased). But the sacrifice is beyond her strength, and she's soon taken by the irresistible desire to get her child back: in damp and foggy night, on her way to the station...

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 work on some of the masterpieces of Italian neorealism, The Children Are Watching Us is a vivid, deeply humane portrait of a family’s disintegration.

One of the most famous movie stars of the moment has a problem with his car. The actor is obliged to stop in a provincial hotel, where he finds himself surrounded by his admirers.

A comedy of errors about marriage and infidelity.

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This 1948 film by Antonioni documents the lives of street cleaners in Rome. N.U. is short for Nettezza urbana, the Italian municipal cleaning service.

Travelling family man Paolo agrees to pose as husband to an unwed pregnant girl he meets on a train. However, once faced with her father, things do not go as planned.

A pair of Poles deported to Siberia are taken to the army formed by General Anders and along the battle trail.

This tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's beautiful daughter Gilda. The opera's original title, La maledizione (The Curse), refers to the curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter had been seduced by the Duke with Rigoletto's encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda likewise falls in love with the Duke and eventually sacrifices her life to save him from the assassins hired by her father.

A film based on the book Il marchese di Roccaverdina by Luigi Capuana about a marquis who is in love with his servant Agrippina but is unable to marry her because of her status. The marquis commands his trusted subject to marry her in his stead as long as he vows not to have sex with her.

A young man falls in love with a girl from whom he hides the fact that he is already engaged to a mature upper-class lady. To win her over, he hires two actors to portray his parents.

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Immediately after the war, bandits attack a truck that is transporting newlyweds Michele and Giovanna and the accountant of an agricultural cooperative charged with bringing four million lire into office.

In the village of Viggiù, the firemen organize various skits and performances in their theater, inviting all the celebrities known at that time.

Returning home after a night of love spent in a woodman's hut with Orsola, Pietro is arrested by the police for a crime he did not commit. His mother and youngest sister, Rosaria, go to Orsola begging her to provide Pietro with the alibi that will clear him. But Rocco, Orsola's brother, dreading a family scandal, constrains Orsola to silence. Condemned despite his innocence, Pietro escapes from prison, but the police track him down and kill him, and his mother, before the eyes of Rosaria. Years pass, and one day Rocco stumbles upon a half-frozen young woman lying in the snow. He takes her home and confides her to the care of Orsola. Later, yielding to the pleas of Orsola, Rocco and Rocco's son, Salvatore, the girl stays on in the house, and Salvatore falls in love with the beautiful stranger, who is careful to keep the family members from learning she is Rosaria, the grown up sister of Pietro seeking revenge for the deaths of her brother and mother.

An American composer moves to Italy and falls for a local country girl right before the start of World War II.

The story of Jean Valjean, still pursued by Javert, continues with a love developing between Cosette and radical student Marius, a blackmailing attempt by suspicious innkeeper Thenardier, and a climax on the barricades of Paris.

In the kingdom of Kindaor, traitor Sedesmondo kills his brother, the King of Kindaor, and becomes the tyrant of kingdom. He abandons the prince Arminio to beasts in the woods, but lions don't kill him and breed him as one of them.

Short documentary about superstition in southern Italy.

Don Michele, boss of a smuggling ring and partner of Maria’s father known as the little Madonna, tries to rape the girl when he discovers that her father has stolen a large sum of money to use as her dowry. The girl saves her father from suicide and proves him innocent of the murder of Don Michele.

The ordinary life of the prudent employee Mr. Travet accelerates as he and her wife meet his new chief.

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Beniamino and his family have lived inside a school since the end of the war. After five years they have to move, but in Rome it's not easy to find an apartment.

A family drama involving a wife torn between her husband and her criminal ex-lover.

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No overview available