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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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...

Taking advantage of the shooting of a film, gangsters stage a hold -up. A black man, Selim, is unfairly accused.

Three stories, very different in space and time. Lysistrata, a dancer from ancient times, Jeanne d'Arc, medieval warrior and Elisabeth, American war widow who comes on pilgrimage in Italy.

Jean Michaut is a bargeman who lives near an old barge cemetery named "Bras-Mort". He is in love with Monique, the daughter of a wealthy boat owner. The girl returns his affection which goes against her family's class prejudices. Her family prove willing to do anything to separate the lovers, but, Monique will not buy in. On the contrary, she leaves her intolerant family to live with Jean among simple, more tolerant bargemen.

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.

A youngish sales employee of a computer firm is blackmailed into helping a group of mysterious Bulgarian industrialists who have come to his office. A government contract is being sought for a businessman who is in danger of bankruptcy.

A decadent noblewoman, whose stranded husband has dilapidated their whole fortune on gambling, tries to keep her daughter in school while hiding their state of poverty from her, by leading a double life as an exotic dancer.

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

Chéri-Bibi is an ex-convict who undergoes plastic surgery in order to resemble his rival for the hand of Cecily. Once he emerges from the bandages, Cheri-Bibi is plunged into a series of melodramatic misadventures.

Le Havre, France, in 1949. In a town that still shows the scars of war, several friends meet up in Albert's café. One of them, Laurent, has lost his job on the docks and his marriage to Madeleine is falling apart. He knows that his wife wants to start an affair with friend, Jean Sauviot. Jean is a lonely man who is attracted to Madeleine but doesn't want to commit himself to the wife of a friend. On the day that Madeleine tells her husband that she is seeing Jean, Laurent goes looking for Jean to find an explanation. Arriving on the docks in the evening, he attacks an American sailor who looks like Jean, but the man fights back and runs away after killing Laurent accidentally. Madeleine thinks that Laurent was killed by Jean and believes that she can start a new life with her lover. The police have other ideas...

In the Venetian Republic a series of murders are carried out by a hooded man in black who always makes his escape through the city's waterways on a gondola.

In Cambodia in 1943, a family is massacred by the Japanese, before the eyes of the eldest son who manages to escape. His four-year-old sister is taken in by a Cambodian family.

A secret agent uncovers four atomic rockets with a lethal gas warhead which have been stolen from a secret factory, and a dastardly plot.

Ersilia Drei, after a suicide attempt recounts her vicissitudes: hired as governess to the daughter of Consul Grotti she is wooed by Franco but soon after seduced by the very consul who drives her away after his daughter loses her life due to Ersilia's distraction. Because of economic difficulties she falls lower and lower until she meets Ludovico with whom she can perhaps hope for sincere love again. The consul's return, however, will lead her toward a tragic ending.

During World War II, the Frenchman Léon Garros and Boris Vaganov escape from the Nazi concentration camp. After 15 years, Léon, who became a journalist, and his friends came to the USSR to make a report and find Boris in the meantime. In Moscow he doesn't found, and for the sake of meeting with a friend, Garros has to travel around the country by car... The foreigners are accompanied by Nikolai, the translator, who, in turn, is looking for his brother's runaway bride, Natasha.

Laura has lost her fiancé. Immediately after, an accident happens to her and she becomes blind. Eve, her sympathetic sister, and an understanding doctor imagine having a newcomer, Marcel, play the delicate role of the missing fiance, because their voices are identical. Laure marvels and regains a taste for life. But Marcel falls in love with Eve.

Milan is an ex Formula One driver and now he lives with his wife Roberte in a small country town. But Milan is not satisfied, so Roberte encourages a love-story between Milan and Helene, a young woman. Milan can't decide and at last the tragedy comes. Then Milan returns to drive in Formula One.

An Italian WWII documentary by a group of neorealists.

From Bonaparte to Casanova, history is cast in the light of famous escapes from various European countries.