Cesare Zavattini

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.

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.

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.

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 street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

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?

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

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.

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 public affairs; a lucky ticket-holder at a small town fair.

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 his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.

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...

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 revealed as a jealous husband's spy.

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.

A tribute to Naples, this film presents six episodes: a clown exploited by a gangster, a pizza seller losing her husband’s ring, a child's funeral, a gambler beaten by a kid, a prostitute's unusual wedding, and a "wisdom seller" offering advice.

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 railroad station where Mary is to take the train to Paris, then ultimately reunite with her husband and daughter in Philadelphia. Will she throw away her old life for this passionate new romance?

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.

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

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 ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

Agnese has many men who woo her and live with her cousin Cesira, who has the opposite problem with men and wishes she would also have men woo her.

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

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

After murdering his mistress and being hunted by the authorities in France, Pierre stows away aboard a ship bound for Genoa. Though he's immediately robbed after arriving, things look up for Pierre when he meets kindhearted Cecchina, who introduces him to her mother, Marta. Pierre and Marta fall in love, but police are closing in and the new couple may not have much time left.

The Sanchez clan have seen the worst of times, but they have survived by sticking together. When Sanchez's oldest daughter Consuelo plans to build a life of her own, the family and Sanchez face an enormous challenge.

When "Tamara" throws herself from the window of their brothel, her colleagues are made to realise that a new law will close down the source of their livelihood. The girls must now find honest work.