Nino Rota
The story of the desperate love affair between a young Samoan chief and a beautiful American painter, against the will of her father, the powerful governor of the island. Amid this man-made tension comes a powerful hurricane so devastating, the lives of the lovers and the entire island are imperiled.
A miniseries in three parts about the theft of Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" in 1911.
As Hercule Poirot enjoys a luxurious cruise down the Nile, a newlywed heiress is found murdered on board. Can Poirot identify the killer before the ship reaches the end of its journey?
Orchestra Rehearsal (Italian: Prova d'orchestra) is a 1978 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. It follows an Italian orchestra as the members go on strike against the conductor. The film was shown out of competition at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. Considered by some to be underrated Orchestra Rehearsal was the last collaboration between composer Nino Rota and Fellini, due to Rota's death in 1979.
Barcelona in the seventies. Piper, comedian at the theater El Molino has specialized in effeminate roles, but in reality is a conqueror. His wife, Nita, sets a trap for him.
Casanova is a libertine, collecting seductions and sexual feats. But he is really interested in someone, and is he really an interesting person? Is he really alive?
Michael is the younger son of a middle-class family, a strong-willed and free-thinking fellow, who is off in some distant country fighting for a revolutionary cause.
During his preparation for his film on Casanova Fellini asks a number of renowned actors to give him their view on the character of Casanova.
Documentary produced by Italian television about the production of Federico Fellini's film Amarcord (1973).
In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.
Set in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of World War II, the story centers on Tunin, a farmer turned anarchist who stays in a brothel while preparing to kill Benito Mussolini. There he falls in love with one of the whores.
In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.
Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara in 1971, Sunset Sunrise (Hi wa shizumi, hi wa noboru) is a “hippie” road movie chronicling the trek that a handful of people take in order to reach Katmandú, the capital of Nepal.
Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.
Fellini exposes his great attraction for the clowns and the world of the circus first recalling a childhood experience when the circus arrives nearby his home. Then he joins his crew and travel from Italy to Paris chasing the last greatest European clowns still live in these countries. He also meets Anita Ekberg trying to buy a panther in a circus.
A race-car driver who's down on her luck is invited by her ex-husband's wife to stay at their plush villa. The two women form a bond, and it's not long before their mutual dislike for the husband culminates into a plan to kill him. As it turns out, though, they're not alone in plotting murder
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.
Fellini discusses his views of making motion pictures and his unorthodox procedures. He seeks inspiration in various out of the way places. During this film viewers go with him to the Colisseum at night, on a subway ride past Roman ruins, to the Appian Way, to a slaughterhouse, and on a visit to Marcello Mastroianni's house. Fellini also is seen in his own office interviewing a series of unusual characters seeking work or his help.
Director Franco Zeffirelli's beloved version of one of the most well-known love stories in the English language. Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet fall in love against the wishes of their feuding families. Driven by their passion, the young lovers defy their destiny and elope, only to suffer the ultimate tragedy.
Three directors each adapt a Poe short story to the screen: "Toby Dammit" features a disheveled drugged and drunk English movie star who nods acceptance in the Italian press and his producers fawn over him. "Metzengerstein" features a Mediveal countess who has a love-hate relationship with a black stallion - who it turns out is really her dead lover. "William Wilson" tells the story of a sadistic Austrian student with an exact double whom he later kills.
Baptista, a rich Paduan merchant, announces that his fair young daughter, Bianca, will remain unwed until her older sister, Katharina, a hellish shrew, has wed. Lucentio, a student and the son of a wealthy Pisan merchant, has fallen in love with Bianca. He poses as a tutor of music and poetry to gain entrance to the Baptista household and to be near Bianca. Meanwhile, Petruchio, a fortune-hunting scoundrel from Verona, arrives in Padua, hoping to capture a wealthy wife. Hortensio, another suitor of Bianca, directs Petruchio's attention to Katharina. When Hortensio warns him about Katharina's scolding tongue and fiery temper, Petruchio is challenged and resolves to capture her love. Hortensio and another suitor of Bianca, Gremio, agree to cover Petruchio's costs as he pursues Katharina.
Stuck in a dream world of his own, Italian sculptor Albert Saporito, sometimes has difficulty separating truth from fiction. When he dreams that his gangster neighbor has been murdered, he reports the crime to the police, only to involve himself in a complicated situation.
Middle-aged Giulietta grows suspicious of her husband, Giorgio, when his behavior grows increasingly questionable. One night when Giorgio initiates a seance amongst his friends, Giulietta gets in touch with spirits and learns more about herself and her painful past. Slightly skeptical, but intrigued, she visits a mystic who gives her more information -- and nudges her toward the realization that her husband is indeed a philanderer.
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.
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.
Primary school teacher Mr. Mombelli, nevertheless satisfied with his life, is driven by his wife to resign and starting a new activity. He invest all his goodwill setting up a footwear little factory.
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 Nazi past.
Arturo is a teenage boy who lives alone on an island. His mother died when he was born, and his father is always away. From time to time, Arturo's father comes to see him, but only too soon leaves him again. He seems not to appreciate his son at all, but, nevertheless, Arturo adores his father. One day, Arturo's father arrives with his second wife, Nunciata, a seventeen-year-old girl with whom Arturo soon falls in love...
An anthology of four adult tales: a young couple tries to hide their marriage and the wife’s supposed pregnancy from their place of employment; a billboard photo of a scantily clad woman comes to life to torment the local censor; a lottery is held in which the prize is to spend the night with a beautiful woman; an aristocratic couple comes to terms with life and marriage after the domineering husband is caught visiting sex workers by the press.
The Reluctant Saint is based on the life of Saint Joseph of Cupertino who was sent to work at a monastery circa 17th century Italy because his mother believed him too simple for anything else.
Inspired by a real-life event that took place in Calabria at the end of World War 2, the film is the story of a young farmer who led peasants to revolt, after being falsely accused of murder.
An old prince (Eduardo De Filippo) lives in his ancient palace in Rome together with the ghosts of his ancestors; he proudly rejects a huge offer for the palace by a real estate group seeking a place to build a department store; but the prince suddenly dies (and joins the ghosts!) and his nephew (Marcello Mastroianni), just back from the States, sells the palace for a much lesser price. The old palace seems lost but here come the ghosts which manage to create a Caravaggio-like painting in the palace, which is so declared national monument and saved from destruction. A little satirical masterpiece about real estate speculation in 1950s Italy. And a great cast with the best Italian actors of the time: Eduardo, Buazzelli, Gassman and Mastroianni playing three characters.
During World War II, a plane full of RAF fighter crashes in the Ethiopian desert and they are met upon by an enemy Italian patrol that allows them to go free. But, when the Brits are given orders to attack the Italians, lots of problems ensue.
Journalist and man-about-town Marcello 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.
Tom Ripley is a talented mimic, moocher, forger and all-around criminal improviser; but there's more to Tom Ripley than even he can guess.
When a widow’s family moves to the big city, two of her sons become romantic rivals, with deadly results.
Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.
A young girl falls in love with an actor. She persuades her father to support his acting company, but when she discovers him with another girl she runs away. Then everybody try to find her.
Mario Soldati accompanies us in search of genuine food, this time to discover the culinary traditions of Christmas lunch, with Father Mariano, Cesare Zavattini, the shoemaker Angelo Gatto, the baroness Aurelia Michetti and the General Lorenzo De Grandi.
Assola is an imaginary village on the border between Italy and France and the borderline crosses the village itself. The French customs agent Ferdinand is always trying to catch the Italian smuggler Giuseppe. Giuseppe discovers that Ferdinand was actually born in Italy and therefore he can't be a French customs agent.
Rome, 1957. A woman, Cabiria, is robbed and left to drown by her boyfriend, Giorgio. Rescued, she resumes her life and tries her best to find happiness in a cynical world. Even when she thinks her struggles are over and she has found happiness and contentment, things may not be what they seem.
A lonely city transplant, and a sheltered girl haunted by a lover’s promise, meet by chance on a canal bridge and begin a tentative romance that quickly entangles them in a web of longing and self-delusion.
Twenty-year-old Joseph (Perkins) and his sixteen-year-old sister Suzanne (Mangano) live in the merciless conditions of an intemperate foreign land with their widowed mother (Van Fleet). Their mother attempts to exert a hold on her children by involving them in the family's run-down rice plantation. However the siblings seek liberation, and look for this in their romantic lives. Suzanne becomes involved with Michael (Conte) and Joseph finds a love interest in Claude (Valli).
A Pianetta lacks the medical officer, and this until the arrival of Dr. Marchetti. In the country, however, the doctor is already installed Don Antonio, the local healer that with a little 'of psychology, magic potions and tricks is held in high regard, especially by Mafalda that awaits her fiancé Corrado who does not write more since 1942. Even Easter, the doctor's assistant, uses a magic potion when he falls for him. Among Don Antonio and Dr. Marchetti broke a kind of war at a distance in which all are involved, including Clamide, nephew of Don Antonio, flirting with Galeazzo.
Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia including his disastrous 1812 invasion serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.
Aging small-time con man Augusto, who swindles peasants, works with two younger men: Roberto, who wants to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Bruno, nicknamed Picasso, who has a wife and daughter and wants to paint. Augusto avoids the personal entanglements, spending money at clubs seeking the good life. His attitude changes when he runs into his own daughter, whom he rarely sees, and realizes she's now a young woman and in need of his help to continue her studies. His usual partners are away, so he goes in with others to run a swindle, and they aren't forgiving when he claims he's given the money back to their mark. They leave him beaten, robbed, and alone.
At a wedding party involving three beautiful women, a young man should choose the most charming. But a professor intervenes to prevent the verdict, remembering the troubles caused by Paris in a similar situation.
Six episodes (adapted from as many short stories: Gozzano, D'Annunzio, Guido Rocca, Marino Moretti, Alba de Céspedes and Oreste Biancoli), six love stories set in different moments in italian recent history.
Eight-year-old Roger Court is in Venice expecting to reunite with his father, British diplomat Major Court (Trevor Howard), whom he hasn't seen in three years. Roger lives with his Aunt Rose since his mother abandoned him.
When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.
Five young men dream of success as they drift lazily through life in a small Italian village. Fausto, the group's leader, is a womanizer; Riccardo craves fame; Alberto is a hopeless dreamer; Moraldo fantasizes about life in the city; and Leopoldo is an aspiring playwright. As Fausto chases a string of women, to the horror of his pregnant wife, the other four blunder their way from one uneventful experience to the next.
Collected at the age of two, under extreme conditions, by a company of Gypsies, Jolly grew up among them, together with the man who accompanied her.
After murdering her illegitimate baby, Isabella (Tania Weber) pins the blame on her innocent cousin Consuelo (May Britt). Despite the strenuous efforts of her attorney-lover DeSylva (Ettore Manni), Consuelo is found guilty and shipped to a penal colony along with several other female prisoners.
In the background of the football match Roma - Napoli different stories intertwine.
A young man is a servant in the court of a great king of Dalmatia.He was bought when he was still a child ,but he is a high-born gentleman.
In Italy, small-town newlyweds Wanda and Ivan Cavalli embark on their honeymoon in the big city of Rome. Ivan dutifully wants to keep appointments with family and church, but Wanda is only interested in meeting her favorite photo-strip star known as "The White Sheik". While Wanda impetuously sneaks away to locate the object of her affections, disconsolate Ivan tries his hardest to keep up appearances with the couple's relatives.
Private eye Edward Mercer travels to Venice to locate a man due a reward for his aid in the war. Shortly after arriving, he becomes the prime suspect in the murder of his local contact. In his quest to clear his name, Mercer uncovers a conspiracy. Even the local magistrate seems to be working against him, and Mercer begins to suspect the man he came to find is behind it all.
The Queen of Sheba falls in love with the King of Israel. The King of Israel, however, is in love with someone else.
A Norwegian scientist builds a device that can convert sound waves into electrical energy. However, the machine is stolen by the scientist's wife and assistant, who head across the frozen tundra towards Russia. A police inspector and a local girl team up with the scientist to help recover the device.
A combination of a satire on war and a comedy with war as the background. It tells of the ordinary people living on a Naples sidestreet, from 1940 to 1950 under the dominance of the Fascists, the Nazis and then the Allies occupation forces. Primary among the citizens is Gennaro Iovine (Eduard De Filippo)who has a penchant for innocently getting into trouble, and his friend Pasquale (Toto.) The latter is a rail-sweeper who becomes a professional stand-in...a corpse used to conceal contraband...serving jail time for those who don't care to spend the time to do the time...a substitute at a political rally when violence threatens the scheduled speaker
While casing a bank he intends to rob, gangster Leo discovers one of the clerks, Antonio, is his exact double. He kidnaps Antonio and robs the bank, posing as Antonio. But Leo hadn't accounted for the involvement of Antonio's wife, Dorothy.
A group of men calling themselves 'The Pirates of Capri", headed by Captain Sirroco, who is really Count Amalfi, are trying to restore freedom to the people of Naples. The Queen is advised of the pirate's assault of a member of her court and she seeks to escape to Palermo. But, she is advised it would be good politics for her to attend a ball Amalfi is giving for his fiancée, Mercedes, who is unaware of the dual role Amalfi is playing.
In London, psychiatrist Clive Riordan suspects that his cool and polished wife, Storm, is having yet another affair. Abandoning his weekly card game, Clive returns home to find Storm with her latest lover, American Bill Kronin. To Storm's horror, Clive overpowers Bill and takes him away at gunpoint, then hides him in a secret location and taunts Storm with Bruce's condition. Scotland Yard gets involved when Storm contacts them about her missing dog.
An Italian war criminal, sentenced to death for war crimes committed during World War II, attempts to take refuge in France .
A professor was appointed member of the jury of a beauty contest and falls for a beautiful contestant. In order to get the girl he must win the "Tour of Italy", so professor sells his soul to the devil to get the winning and the girl.
An Italian sex worker falls in love with a black American soldier during World War II.
On his way to Africa, Don Pietro, a young missionary priest has his suitcase stolen in the station of Naples. While trying to retrieve his baggage he realizes how miserable the city of Naples is. Then he decides that his mission is there in Naples, He creates his 'The Boys' Town' a shelter for poor kids, aka the 'scugnizzi' (street urchins), with a view to putting them back on the right track. Some of the kids, though, do not play by the rules just using that 'home' as a convenient place for hiding the product of their thefts...
Aldo Piscitello, a minor government clerk, is forced in 1934 to join the Fascist party. When the war comes, he finds himself able only to talk ineffectually in secret against Mussolini, even as his own son Giovanni is sent into battle. By the end of the war, Aldo has found the courage to stand up for his beliefs, but by then it is too late.
Giovanni used to be a humble, mild-mannered government clerk whose life was turned upside down when he met Giulio, a notorious forger who at once set about manipulating the over-confident man. Giovanni did what he should never have done: he associated himself with the crook. Giulio soon laid hands on Giovanni's money, ruined his career and manhandled him into marrying his own mistress, the beautiful Ginevra. It was of course an unhappy marriage but Giovanni found a little solace when his son Ciro was born. Seven years later though, Wanzer resurfaced...
Vivere in pace is a 1947 Italian comedy-drama war film directed by Luigi Zampa.
A young music teacher, after her house is burned down by a raid, has to go to a refugee camp with her old and sick mother. She is forced to sell everything she owns, while she is looking for a job as a singer. One night, tired and frustrated, she meets a man who invites her out for a drink. She accepts the invitation, stunned by the bunch of banknotes in his wallet. The man takes her to his room at the hotel Luna and seduces her. Before leaving, she robs him of his money and then walks hastily home, but in the meantime her mother has died. She meets a young maestro, who wants her to sing his songs. She seems to begin a happy, though hard, life together with the young maestro who wishes to marry her. The wicked man suddenly reappears and menaces to reveal their old encounter and that she is a thief, but he is later killed. The unfortunate lady is suspected of the crime, but at the end she is cleared of it and she can happily marry her maestro
In a post-war Rome (1946) a cat burglar inadvertently saves the life of a would-be suicide man who returns from the war to find that he has been betrayed by his fiancée while fighting in the war. From that moment the thief takes the ex-soldier under his wing. They leave house together for a night full of misadventures. In a streets of Rome they meet the struggling typist who can’t pay her rent and opts to street life; a wandering amnesiac who lost his memory and keeps asking everyone “Do you recognize me?”. Thieves, gamblers, hookers, policemen, soldiers and endless chain of cigarette-smoking and alcohol/espresso-drinking.
Started in the summer of 1943 by Lattuada and , the because of the war that raged in Italy at the time, the shooting was interrupted several times only to stop for good in September of the same year. It only resumed after the war, in the spring of 1945, but with Mario Costa as the director instead of Lattuada. It was eventually released in September 1945 with only Lattuada billed as the director. Similarly, the film was started with Vittorio Gassman in the role of Brunello, but when the shooting resumed in 1945 he was replaced by Leonardo Cortese
The ordinary life of the prudent employee Mr. Travet accelerates as he and her wife meet his new chief.
An engineer, devastated by the death of his fiance during a mountain expedition in north Italy, hopes he might forget about her by marrying a young nurse who adores him. But one day he returns to the mountain retreat where he’d had such happy days with his fiance, leaving his young bride distraught.
Nicoletta is a young rebel, cherished by his forgiving father, until an old relative joins the family after the wedding of her sister, and insists that the impetuous girl is sent to college. Nicoletta becomes a true tornado for educators trying in vain to bring her under control.
His 1933 debut, following some years as a journalist and then script boy, was Treno popolare, an early sound lark about several Roman petit bourgeois on a day trip to the country that was influenced by the German proto-neorealist silent picture People on Sunday (1930). Produced at the height of the fascist era, Treno popolare was nonetheless free of propaganda, and featured the first film score by the legendary composer Nino Rota.
