Italian neorealism

A family man travelling for work, Paolo Bianchi, meets on a train a lonely girl, Maria. He sees her again on a bus and she reveals him that she's in troubles: she's pregnant, her baby's father has left her and she doesn't know how to tell to her parents that she's not married. She asks Paolo to play the role of her husband and he accepts....

Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna, and they plan to get rid of her older husband.

During the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the Resistance leader, Giorgio Manfredi, is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.

Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.

American military personnel interact warily with a variety of Italian locals over a year and a half in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces make their retreat.

A rowdy woman is so forceful that she outdoes her husband in a loud cry against speculators who refuse poor people entrance to a block of new apartments, built after WW2. Without noticing it, she starts a people's movement, and leads a march to the capital. She returns to her village a winner, an honourable MP. Yet, she is still the same simple, fiery woman, able to get in a hair-pulling brawl with the local barmaid for the affection of her man.

In rural Sicily, the fishermen live at the mercy of the greedy wholesalers. One family risks everything to buy their own boat and operate independently.

In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.

The city of Pola is being evacuated after the peace conference of 1947 decided to assign the sovereignty to Tito's Jugoslavia. However the main character decides to stay, thinking that communism might bring him a better future. Life turns to be hard for him and his family until he changes his mind, but he is killed before he can leave the country.

Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.

A woman from the lower class desperately tries to get her daughter into the movies.

A young German boy faces the problems of the tough life in the immediate post-WWII Berlin.

Karin, a young woman from the Baltic countries, marries fisherman Antonio to escape from a prison camp. But she cannot get used to the tough life in Antonio's volcano-threatened village, Stromboli.

A wealthy woman becomes obsessed with humanitarianism when her young son dies after committing suicide.

An unhappily married couple attempts to find direction and insight while vacationing in Naples.

An open-hearted, unrelentingly energetic orphan struggles to make the best of his life on the streets of Milan.

An elderly man and his dog struggle to survive on his government pension in Rome.

Prior to leaving by train for Paris, a married American woman tries to break off her affair with a young Italian in Rome's Stazione Termini.

Immediately after the war, bandits attack a truck that is transporting newlyweds Michele and Giovanna and the accountant of an agricultural cooperative charged with bringing four million lire into office.

Francesco Dominici has just returned from the front, fought for three years and was a prisoner for another three years.

A contingent of Italian prisoners of war arrive on a train from Germany after World War II to Turin. The city where Ernesto lives has been bombed, his mother is dead and his sister has gone missing.

A young, by-the-book judge is appointed to a Sicilian village controlled by corrupt leaders and the Mafia.

The story of a group of Sicilian miners and their families, and their hardships as they decide to illegally cross the border to France.

The railroad engineer Andrea Marcocci has been working with his partner and friend Gigi Liverani for thirty years and feels happy and proud of his work, drinking wine after hours with his friends in a bar owned by the former railroad man Ugo. Andrea is married to Sara, and his young son Sandro is very close to him; however, Andrea has issues with his unemployed son Marcello and with his pregnant daughter Giulia, whose boyfriend Renato Borghi was forced to marry her. After a suicide crosses the tracks of his train in a curve, Andrea feels deeply affected by the accident and almost collides with another train. The railroad company investigates the accident and steps Andrea down from his position. The domestic life of Andrea is also affected by his aggressive behavior and Marcello and Giulia leave home. Later Andrea also leaves home and starts to drink until the day Sandro visits him in a bar.

During Fascism and after WWII, a school porter sacrifices himself so his son, who is slightly ashamed of a lowly background, can become a respected professor.The film also takes a few jabs at Italy's rapid governmental reshuffles.