Movies: Cesare Zavattini

World War II vet Paul Sutton falls for a pregnant and unwed woman who persuades him -- during their first encounter -- to pose as her husband so she can face her family....

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 c...

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....

After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and marriage. Years later, she travels to Russia with his photo, determined to find him. What will she discover...

An anthology of four comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy: frothy young love and office politics in the big city; milk advertisements that begin to haunt an aging prude; a trophy wife enduring her husband's very publ...

Three tales of very different women using their sexuality as a means to getting what they want....

While on vacation in Rome, married American Mary Forbes becomes entangled in an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni Doria. As she prepares to leave Italy, Giovanni confesses his love for her; he doesn't want her to go. Together they wander the railr...

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the...

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....

Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and ...

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He en...

At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride......

Six vignettes explore love and desire in Rome, from prostitution and heartache to unwed motherhood and the male gaze....

A lord’s servant, Ali Baba, is sent to retrieve a slave for his master, but ends up on an adventure filled with gold, mischief, love, and forty famous thieves instead....

The story of 5 girls among 200 who answer a wanted ad for a modest secretarial position, which leads to overcrowding in the building and a tragic accident....

A criminal mastermind sets up a phony film production as part of a plan to smuggle stolen gold....

After saving a tramp from suicide, a millionaire takes his clothing and disappears. Word is out that he will give a million dollars to anyone who is kind to a tramp....

An elderly gentleman and his dog find themselves out of a home with little means....

Seven mini-stories of adultery: a widow misbehaves at her husband's funeral, a wife turns to streetwalking for revenge, a prudish girl surprises, a neglected wife vies for her husband's attention, a fight over a dress, a death pact, and a detective r...

Vittorio De Sica is a teacher struggling to take care of his family and always dreaming that Parliament will increase the salaries for teachers and life will become easier for his wife, Maria Mereander, and kids. An Indian prince (Sabu) visits Italy,...