The fact that this was filmed in Rome at a time when you could probably still smell the fleeing Nazi's petrol fumes gives this an enthralling sense of authenticity. The story is centred around the character of "Manfredi" (Marcello Pagliero) who is being chased by the Gestapo, and so is trying to escape. Even though Rome has been declared "open" and is therefore not subject to bombardment, the citizens are still very much under the control of their occupiers and getting "Mandredi" to safety is no easy feat. He seeks shelter with his friend "Francesco" (Francesco Grandjacquet) but meets his fiancée "Pina" (Anna Magnani) instead. She wants to help him out and so they send for the priest "Don Pietro" (Aldo Fabrizi) who sees the safety of these resistance fighters as a core part of his responsibility to God. Even he, clad in his robes, is not immune though from the pursuing authorities and as they close in things become increasingly more perilous for all concerned. This is one of the most poignant wartime stories I have ever seen. It conveys the sense of brutality being faced by the community, but it also allows room for a spirit of optimism and hope to emerge too. The children continue to play and though their food is rationed, their day to day lives are not touched by the mayhem of many occupants of ruined cities elsewhere. The casting of the soldiers is masterly, as is that of the collaborative police commissioner and the whole ensemble, coupled with the characterful writing and the delicately framed photography really does give us a plausible insight into just how - even as the war was coming to a close - dangerous their lives were. It doesn't spare us some ghastliness at the conclusion either - but that's somehow an ultimate validation of an humanity that is plentiful throughout.
A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.
The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.
Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.
Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.
In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.
Wyatt and Billy, two Harley-riding hippies, complete a drug deal in Southern California and decide to travel cross-country in search of spiritual truth.
Heroin addict Mark Renton stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends - Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud and Tommy. He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane, along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind when Begbie shows up at his front door on the lam, and a scheming Sick Boy follows.
A touching story of an Italian book seller of Jewish ancestry who lives in his own little fairy tale. His creative and happy life would come to an abrupt halt when his entire family is deported to a concentration camp during World War II. While locked up he tries to convince his son that the whole thing is just a game.
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
The personal stories lived by the Uncle, the Father and the Son, respectively, form a tragic experience that is drawn along a line in time. This line is comparable to a crease in the pages of the family album, but also to a crack in the walls of the paternal house. It resembles the open wound created when drilling into a mountain, but also a scar in the collective imaginary of a society, where the idea of salvation finds its tragic destiny in the political struggle. What is at the end of that line? Will old war songs be enough to circumvent that destiny?
People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.