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.
In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Edipo (Oedipus), and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Edipo that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…
This biblical drama from the Catholic Marxist director focuses on the teachings of Jesus, including the parables that reflect their revolutionary nature. As Jesus travels along the coast of the Sea of Galilee, he gradually gathers more followers, leading him into direct conflict with the authorities.
A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiralling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.
A man and his son take an allegorical stroll through life with a talking bird that spouts social and political philosophy.
Problems arise for Antonio Magnano when he is unable to consummate his marriage to the beautiful Barbara Puglisi and his virility is called into question. Despite the fact that he loves his beautiful wife and they have otherwise been happily married for a year, his problem becomes a source of contention for all concerned.
A series of bawdy and satirical episodes written during the reign of the emperor Nero and set in imperial Rome. Like the more famous version made by Federico Fellini, an adaptation of Petronius' Satyricon.
Pier Paolo Pasolini sets out to interview Italians about sex, apparently their least favorite thing to talk about in public: he asks children if they know where do babies come from; asks old and young women if they support gender equality; asks both sexes if a woman's virginity still matters, what do they think of homosexuality, if divorce should be legal, or if they support the recent abolition of brothels. He interviews blue-collar workers, intellectuals, college students, rural farmers, the bourgeoisie, and every other kind of people, painting a vivid portrait of a rapidly-industrializing Italy, hanging between modernity and tradition — toward both of which Pasolini shows equal distrust.
Stefano is a shy and sensitive teenager who has just completed his studies in Switzerland and is considering becoming a monk. But his father, a rich Milanese publisher, who had the ambition to see his son succeed him, refuses and takes him on a cruise with a young woman to take this idea out of his mind...
Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life.
The death of a wealthy patriarch in 1885 sets off an interfamily power struggle. Son Ferdinando buys out his other relatives in order to gain full control over the dead man's property. But Ferdinando's nephew Amerigo holds out. Amerigo's stance is weakened when he heads for Florence and meets prostitute Bianca.
A young man hatches a plan to sleep with another man's infertile wife. Based on the play by Machiavelli.
God casts Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden because Eve decided to have a fling with a visiting Cro-Magnon named Bearkiller. The disgraced couple find themselves on the outside up against an assortment of various dinosaurs, flying monsters and cannibals.
A young naval officer becomes a corsair to make enough money to marry a pretty girl, and fights injustice and snobbery to reach home safely.
A historian goes to a castle library to translate some ancient erotic literature. While there he discovers what he believes to be supernatural forces at work.
Luca, a petrol dealer, marries a magazine dancer, Ippolita, a girl who likes to be courted by the many passing motorists. One day, the woman discovers that her husband has betrayed her with Adriana. Ippolita decides her revenge: she assures Luke that she will keep her duties as a wife only when she too has allowed herself similar distractions. Through a series of animated events, the two resume married life: but Luca will not be able to know if Ippolita was really unfaithful to him.
The continuation of the adventures of Captain Robert Surcouf and his crew.
Robin Hood fights the evil Sheriff of Nothingham. Friar Tuck brings his friend Moi Kato, a Kung Fu master. Medival movie meets Italo Eastern.
Filumena, an ex-prostitute and for decades Domenico Soriano's lover, discovers that he intends to get married and so pretends to be on the verge of death in order to get him to marry her instead.
Story of Roberta, a beautiful young woman from a wealthy industrialist family and her relationship with Franco, a rough car mechanic and stranger whom she meets on the beach of Forte dei Marmi.