Marcello Pagliero

During the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.

A band of gangsters devise a plan to steal a game contested between two drug gangs of drug traffickers: the five fraudsters will face bigger problems than them.

Fred, the nephew of a senator,has murdered a Black man on a train. The two only witnesses are Lizzie McKay, a prostitute from New York, and Sidney, a colored man. Fred decides to seduce Lizzie in order to make her give false evidence according to which Sidney has attempted to rape her. The uncle also puts pressure on the young woman. After much hesitation, Lizzie finally accepts but Sidney, who has nearly got lynched, takes refuge at her home...

Six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley as American military personnel interact with a variety of Italian locals over eighteen months in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces retreat.

Dedee is a prostitute, working in Monsieur Rene's night club on Antwerp's harbour. The porter is Marco, her pimp. Dedee is not happy, until she meets Francesco, an italian sailorman. They fall in love and Dedee begins to dream about an escape of her daily dullness.

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.

Escaping British prisoners of war hide out in German occupied France.

A couple of hit men set out to kill an old friend.