The 40 most popular 1960s italian movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
1966 · 2h 41m · US
While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.


Once Upon a Time in the West
1968 · 2h 46m · IT
As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.


For a Few Dollars More
1965 · 2h 12m · DE
Two bounty hunters both pursue the brutal and sadistic bandit, El Indio, who has a large bounty on his head.


A Fistful of Dollars
1964 · 1h 39m · DE
The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.


8½
1963 · 2h 19m · IT
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.


Lesbo
1969 · 1h 30m
A sexually unsatisfied wife on the Greek island of Lesbos for a vacation meets a self-confident blonde lesbian who tries to seduce her. Her impotent husband, worried that his wife might turn gay, hires a local man to seduce his wife.


Barbarella
1968 · 1h 38m · FR
In the far future, a highly sexual woman is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand. Along the way she encounters various unusual people.


L'Eclisse
1962 · 2h 6m · FR
Vittoria is a beautiful literary translator living in Rome. After splitting from her writer boyfriend, Riccardo, Vittoria meets Piero, a lively stockbroker, on the hectic floor of the Roman stock exchange. Though Vittoria and Piero begin a relationship, it is not one without difficulties, and their commitment to one another is tested during an eclipse.


La Dolce Vita
1960 · 2h 54m · IT
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.


The Battle of Algiers
1966 · 2h 2m · IT
Former petty criminal Ali la Pointe becomes a commander of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directing a guerilla insurgency against the colonial French occupation. Paratrooper commander Colonel Phillippe Mathieu, a veteran of World War II and the First Indochina War, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings.


Django
1966 · 1h 32m · IT
A coffin-dragging gunslinger and a prostitute become embroiled in a bitter feud between a Klan of Southern racists and a band of Mexican Revolutionaries.


God Forgives... I Don't!
1967 · 1h 53m · IT
In this violent spaghetti western a murderous robber hijacks a payroll train, murders everyone aboard and then stashes his loot. A gunslinger learns about it and decides he wants the money for himself and so hatches an elaborate plot to get at it. He lures the crook into a rigged poker game, and afterward a gunfight ensues. The quick-drawing gunman makes short work of the robber, then teams up with an insurance agent to look for the hidden fortune. Unbeknownst to them, the robber had an ace up his sleeve...


The Leopard
1963 · 3h 6m · FR
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.


Divorce Italian Style
1961 · 1h 44m · IT
Ferdinando Cefalù is desperate to marry his cousin, Angela, but he is married to Rosalia and divorce is illegal in Italy. To get around the law, he tries to trick his wife into having an affair so he can catch her and murder her, as he knows he would be given a light sentence for killing an adulterous woman. He persuades a painter to lure his wife into an affair, but Rosalia proves to be more faithful than he expected.


The Bible: In the Beginning...
1966 · 2h 55m · IT
Covering only the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis, vignettes include: Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden until their indulgence in the forbidden fruit sees them driven out; Cain murdering his brother Abel; Noah building an ark to preserve the animals of the world from the coming flood; and Abraham making a covenant with God.


Rocco and His Brothers
1960 · 2h 58m · IT
When a impoverished widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.


Toby Dammit
1968 · 45m · FR
During a trip to Rome, a debauched Shakespearian actor is tormented by the Italian film industry, fans, the press and the Devil, who appears as a little girl seeking to collect his head. This short is part of the anthology film Spirits of the Dead (1968).


The Damned
1969 · 2h 38m · DE
In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.


Lafayette
1962 · 2h 38m · FR
The story of Lafayette, the 19 year old pacifist who takes the side of the Colonials during the American war of Independence.


El Cid
1961 · 3h 7m · IT
Epic film of the legendary Spanish hero, Rodrigo Diaz ("El Cid" to his followers), who, without compromising his strict sense of honour, still succeeds in taking the initiative and driving the Moors from Spain.


The Specialists
1969 · 1h 44m · DE
Hud Dixon returns to his hometown when his brother is killed by a lynch mob.


The Monsters
1963 · 2h 3m · FR
The myths of the sixties are satirized in 20 episodes.


Oedipus Rex
1967 · 1h 45m · IT
In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Oedipus, and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Oedipus that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…


The Hotshots
1968 · 1h 50m · FR
A story about inventor who invented a cool bike and goes on racing competition but has a lot of problems on his way.


Sexy
1962 · 1h 34m · IT
Italian mondo documentary


The Taming of the Shrew
1967 · 1h 57m · IT
Italy, 16th century. Petruchio, a choleric, lying and poor rural landowner from Verona, arrives in Padua in search of fortune and a wife, while Baptista, a wealthy merchant, announces that he will not allow Bianca, his youngest daughter, to marry until the temperamental and unruly Katherina, his eldest daughter, does.


The Great Silence
1968 · 1h 47m · IT
A mute gunslinger fights in the defense of a group of outlaws and a vengeful young widow, against a group of ruthless bounty hunters.


Supersexy '64
1963 · 1h 40m · IT
A mondo film journeying through night clubs around the world.


Killer Kid
1967 · 1h 42m · IT
The ruthless and cruel Captain Ramirez hunts down and kills revolutionaries in his search for The Saint, the righteous leader of the Mexican insurrection against the Federales.


Blood and Black Lace
1964 · 1h 28m · DE
Isabella, a young model, is murdered by a mysterious masked figure at a fashion house in Rome. When her diary, which details the house employees' many vices, disappears, the masked killer begins killing off all the models in and around the house to find it.


Interrabang
1969 · 1h 33m · IT
Fabrizio, a fashion photographer, Maregalit, a nympho model; Anna, Fabrizio's wife and Valeria, her sister, land on deserted islet for a photo-shoot. When Fabrizio temporarily leaves the women alone to buy some fuel for their yacht, a young man, Marco, joins the trio.


Marquis de Sade: Justine
1969 · 2h 4m · DE
Without a family, penniless and separated from her sister, a beautiful chaste woman will have to cope with an endless parade of villains, perverts and degenerates who will claim not only her treasured virtue but also her life.


The Seducers
1969 · 1h 39m · IT
Ulla, a prostitute is hired by the despicable Mudy, mother of the shy and mentally disturbed 20-year-old Tony with a tendency toward pyromania. She is invited on a sea cruise where she is meant to "take" his virginity. Also invited on the cruise are the provocative Paula and her husband Aldo, who are constantly striving to win the favor of a wealthy woman in hope of obtaining an oil concession. Despite her efforts, Ulla has no effect on the young man until the yacht stops on a Mediterranean island inhabited only by a goat herder and his wife, Beba. Tony is attracted to her, but little by little his mental disorders arise, and the story ends in tragedy.


The Return of Ringo
1965 · 1h 35m · IT
Once again billed as Montgomery Wood, Giuliano Gemma plays a civil war soldier who returns to his family land to find his family decimated, his property taken over by a family of Mexican bandits and his fiancee about to marry the Mexican gangster behind all this. Bent on revenge, he goes undercover disguised as a Mexican and discovers he has a daughter!


Copacabana Palace
1962 · 1h 30m · BR
For three days at the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro, amorous cross-fertilizations are intertwined with petty tricks against the backdrop of the famous carnival festivities. Three (sympathetic) accomplices are beaten to a punch in the hotel vault; three charming stewardesses are looking for entertainment, but their three Carioca host, musicians Tom Jobim, Luiz Bonfá, and João Gilberto, are married; a man, separated from his wife, wants to catch her in the act of adultery.


High Infidelity
1964 · 2h 5m · FR
Four different directors present lighthearted stories about married Italian couples and their dilemmas with jealousy, sex and love. Segment 1: Scandaloso / The Scandal (Franco Rossi) Segment 2: Peccato nel poeriggio / Sin in the Afternoon (Elio Petri) Segment 3: La sospirosa / The Victim (Luciano Salce) Segment 4: Gente moderna / Modern People (Mario Monicelli)


Red Desert
1964 · 1h 57m · FR
In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.


Tutto Totò - Il tuttofare
1967 · IT
No overview available


Black Sunday
1960 · 1h 26m · IT
A vengeful witch, Asa Vajda, and her fiendish servant, Igor Jauvitch, return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant: Katia. Only a handsome doctor with the help of family members stand in her way.


Austerlitz
1960 · 2h 46m · FR
A return to the life of the Little Corporal with a dramatisation of the decisive 1805 conflict between French forces and the armies of Austria and Russia. An epic reconstruction of the battle of Austerlitz, where Bonaparte had the greatest victory of his career.
The 1960s broke the old rules everywhere at once — the French New Wave, the collapse of the Hollywood Production Code, and new waves across Europe and Japan reshaping what a film could show and say.
Italian cinema runs from the neorealists working in bombed-out postwar streets to Fellini's spectacle, the Spaghetti Western, and the lurid giallo thrillers that shaped modern horror. Few national cinemas have exported this many distinct genres.