Ettore Garofolo

Giacinto lives with his wife, their ten children and various other family members in a shack on the hills of Rome. Some time ago he has lost his left eye while at work, and got a consistent sum of money from the insurance company, which he keeps hidden from the rest of the family. His whole life is now based on defending the money he sees as his own, while the rest of the family tries to kill him.

After years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.

An evening at an Italian restaurant hosted by tolerant and relaxed Flora, various middle-class parties enter – large and small, young and old, regulars and tourists, married and single – to dine, converse, argue, celebrate, make confessions; to eavesdrop, to interrupt, to sing, listen to music, and enjoy life.

Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life. "Illibatezza" (Rossellini): The hostess Anna Maria, to dissuade an aggressive suitor who prefers maternal tendencies, assumes an unscrupulous attitude, obeying the suggestions of her distant boyfriend. "The New World" (Godard): The deflagration of an atomic bomb causes strange effects on the inhabitants of a city. "La ricotta" (Pasolini): During the filming of a film about a religious subject, the extra Stracci dies hanging on the cross due to an indigestion of ricotta. "Il pollo spante" (Gregoretti): While an expert illustrates to a board of merchants the most modern techniques to increase sales through the discovery of the secret self of the average consumer, the human story of a bourgeois who, following these suggestions, focuses on the purchase of a plot of land in the countryside.

A middle-aged government accountant is determined to secure a stable job for his son before retiring, willing to go to great lengths to achieve his goal.

Locked up in prison and awaiting execution, bored young vagabonds Bernardino and Mammone pass their time competing in a vulgar storytelling competition, relating indecent accounts about castration, unsavory testicles and an atypical threesome. Not intended for the faint of heart, this audacious piece of moviemaking focuses on tales of jealousy, murder and uncontrollable desires.

Piero arrives in Paris from Luino after having won a pool tournament with friends. In the train he meets the famous place Ramazzini and has so many incidents that culminated with his arrest and the confiscation by the commissioner Juvet. Released, find randomly hospitality at the madame Lenormand and know the great painter Valentine. Both women are tied up, as a wife and lover, Maurice, in prison for robbery. A day Piero wears a mistake and the coat of astrakhan, Maurice, and then...

A young bank teller, literally allergic to paper money, becomes the worst nightmare of his best customer, a wealthy butcher who manages his business unscrupulously.