Best Italian history movies

Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch history films from Italy, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!

  • Poster for Ferrari

    Ferrari 2023

    Set during the summer of 1957. Ex-racecar driver, Enzo Ferrari, is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura, built from nothing ten years earlier. Their tempestuous marriage struggles with the mourning for one son and the acknowledgement of another.

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  • Poster for Caligula

    Caligula 1979

    After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.

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  • Poster for There's Still Tomorrow

    There's Still Tomorrow 2023

    In postwar Rome, a working-class woman dreams of a better future for herself and her daughter while facing abuse at the hands of her domineering husband. When a mysterious letter arrives, she discovers the courage to change the circumstances of her life.

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  • Poster for The Best of Youth

    The Best of Youth 2003

    After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.

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  • Poster for 1900

    1900 1976

    The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.

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  • Poster for Mixed by Erry

    Mixed by Erry 2023

    The rise and fall of the pirate mixtape empire of three brothers from Naples, Italy, during the '80s.

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  • Poster for Ennio

    Ennio 2022

    A portrait of Ennio Morricone, the most popular and prolific film composer of the 20th century, the one most loved by the international public, a two-time Oscar winner and the author of over five hundred unforgettable scores.

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  • Poster for El Cid

    El Cid 1961

    Epic film of the legendary Spanish hero, Rodrigo Diaz ("El Cid" to his followers), who, without compromising his strict sense of honour, still succeeds in taking the initiative and driving the Moors from Spain.

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  • Poster for Waterloo

    Waterloo 1970

    After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.

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  • Poster for The Decameron

    The Decameron 1971

    A young Sicilian is swindled twice, but ends up rich; a man poses as a deaf-mute in a convent of curious nuns; a woman must hide her lover when her husband comes home early; a scoundrel fools a priest on his deathbed; three brothers take revenge on their sister's lover; a young girl sleeps on the roof to meet her boyfriend at night; a group of painters wait for inspiration; a crafty priest attempts to seduce his friend's wife; and two friends make a pact to find out what happens after death.

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  • Poster for One Hundred Steps

    One Hundred Steps 2000

    Peppino Impastato is a quick-witted lad growing up in 1970s Sicily. Despite hailing from a family with Mafia ties and living just one hundred steps from the house of local boss Tano Badalamenti, Peppino decides to expose the Mafia by using a pirate radio station to broadcast his political pronouncements in the form of ironic humour.

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  • Poster for The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

    The Garden of the Finzi-Continis 1970

    In 1930s Italy, a wealthy Jewish family tries to maintain their privileged lifestyle, hosting friends for tennis and parties at their villa. As anti-Semitism intensifies under Fascism, they must ultimately face the horrors of the Holocaust.

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  • Poster for Strangeness

    Strangeness 2022

    During a trip to Sicily in 1920, Luigi Pirandello meets two gravediggers-turned-playwrights rehearsing a play with their amateur dramatics. Pirandello takes an interest in the odd couple, having been suffering from writer's block while working on his eventual masterpiece, Six Characters in Search of an Author.

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  • Poster for Leopardi

    Leopardi 2014

    In 19th-century Italy, Giacomo Leopardi channels his debilitating illness and isolation into poetry.

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  • Poster for My Brother Is an Only Child

    My Brother Is an Only Child 2007

    Accio and Manrico are siblings from a working-class family in 1960s Italy: older Manrico is handsome, charismatic, and loved by all, while younger Accio is sulky, hot-headed, and treats life as a battleground — much to his parents' chagrin. After the former is drawn into left-wing politics, Accio joins the fascists out of spite, but his flimsy beliefs are put to test when he falls for Manrico's like-minded girlfriend.

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  • Poster for #AnneFrank. Parallel Stories

    #AnneFrank. Parallel Stories 2019

    One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did but whose faces have remained in the shadows-Primo Levi. The Oscar®-winning Helen Mirren will introduce audiences to Anne Frank's story through the words in her diary. The set will be her room in the secret refuge in Amsterdam, reconstructed in every detail by set designers from the Piccolo Theatre in Milan. Anne Frank this year would have been 90 years old. Anne's story is intertwined with that of five Holocaust survivors, teenage girls just like her, with the same ideals, the same desire to live: Arianna Szörenyi, Sarah Lichtsztejn-Montard, Helga Weiss and sisters Andra and Tatiana Bucci. Their testimonies alternate with those of their children and grandchildren.

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  • Poster for Pasolini

    Pasolini 2014

    We are with Pasolini during the last hours of his life, as he talks with his beloved family and friends, writes, gives a brutally honest interview, shares a meal with Ninetto Davoli, and cruises for the roughest rough trade in his gun-metal gray Alfa Romeo. Over the course of the action, Pasolini’s life and his art are constantly refracted and intermingled to the point where they become one.

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  • Poster for Don Camillo's Last Round

    Don Camillo's Last Round 1955

    Bewildered, Don Camillo learns that Peppone intends to stand for parliament. Determined to thwart his ambitions, the good priest, ignoring the recommendations of the Lord, decides to campaign against him.

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  • Poster for The Commander

    The Commander 2023

    One dark night during the early phases of WWII, the Italian Royal Navy submarine Cappellini sinks an armed merchant ship sailing with lights out. At that moment, its commander Salvatore Todaro makes a decision that was destined to go down in history: to save the 26 shipwrecked Belgians who otherwise would have drowned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and disembark them at the nearest safe harbor. To make room for them on board his submarine, he is forced to navigate on the surface of the water for three days, visible to the enemy forces and endangering his life and that of his men.

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  • Poster for Hammamet

    Hammamet 2020

    The last years of Bettino Craxi, one of the most important and controversial italian leader of the 1980's.

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  • Poster for Sacco & Vanzetti

    Sacco & Vanzetti 1971

    Boston, 1920. Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are charged and unfairly tried for murder on the basis of their anarchist political beliefs.

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  • Poster for Ludwig

    Ludwig 1973

    Historical evocation of Ludwig, king of Bavaria, from his crowning in 1864 until his death in 1886, as a romantic hero. Fan of Richard Wagner, betrayed by him, in love with his cousin Elisabeth of Austria, abandoned by her, tormented by his homosexuality, he will little by little slip towards madness.

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  • Poster for Caravaggio's Shadow

    Caravaggio's Shadow 2022

    The Catholic Church secretly investigates Caravaggio as the Pope weighs whether to grant him clemency for killing a rival.

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  • Poster for Burn!

    Burn! 1969

    The professional mercenary Sir William Walker instigates a slave revolt on the Caribbean island of Queimada in order to help improve the British sugar trade. Years later he is sent again to deal with the same rebels that he built up because they have seized too much power that now threatens British sugar interests.

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  • Poster for The Colossus of Rhodes

    The Colossus of Rhodes 1961

    While on holiday in Rhodes, Athenian war hero Darios becomes involved in two different plots to overthrow the tyrannical king, one from Rhodian patriots and the other from sinister Phoenician agents.

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  • Poster for Brother Sun, Sister Moon

    Brother Sun, Sister Moon 1972

    In his delirium from his return from war, Francesco Bernardone goes back in his memories to the days when he lived for parties and carnal pleasures. He slowly recovers, but after the illness he is no longer the Francesco that everybody knew. Instead of spending hours in taverns, he meditates on the beauty of God's creatures, soon renouncing his riches and his family with plans to rebuild an abandoned church and his life.

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  • Poster for Vincere

    Vincere 2009

    The story of the descent into madness of Mussolini's secret first wife, Ida Dasler, who was seduced by his passion and vigor but blind to the fascist dictator's many flaws.

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  • Poster for The King of Laughter

    The King of Laughter 2021

    In early 20th-century Naples, a theatrical parody lands beloved thespian and playwright Eduardo Scarpetta in court, facing a malicious lawsuit that could compromise his freedom of expression and the economic security of his extended family—including his son's, young Eduardo De Filippo.

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  • Poster for Cabiria

    Cabiria 1914

    Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?

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  • Poster for Karol: A Man Who Became Pope

    Karol: A Man Who Became Pope 2005

    The life of the pope John-Paul II, from his youth as a writer, actor, and athlete in war-torn occupied Poland to his election as Pope at the age of 58.

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  • Poster for Golden Door

    Golden Door 2006

    The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

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  • Poster for Fabrizio De André: Principe libero

    Fabrizio De André: Principe libero 2018

    A biopic on the personal and artistic life of Italian songwriter Fabrizio De André.

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  • Poster for Good Morning, Night

    Good Morning, Night 2003

    The 1978 kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, president of the most important political party in Italy at the time, Democrazia Cristiana, as seen from the perspective of one of his assailants -- a conflicted young woman in the ranks of the Red Brigade.

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  • Poster for Shoshana

    Shoshana 2024

    In this edge-of-your-seat thriller inspired by real events, a British police officer and a Jewish woman fall in love amidst the political turmoil of 1930s Tel Aviv. With British control over Palestine precarious and conflict inevitable, everyone is forced to choose a side.

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  • Poster for Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy

    Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy 2012

    On December 12, 1969, a bomb kills 17 people at the Piazza Fontana national bank in Milan, Italy, marking the beginning of the Years of Lead. Local anarchists are scapegoated for the massacre by police and the media, but a lone prosecutor uncovers a conspiracy of far-right groups, corrupt secret services, and other interests that seek to undermine democracy.

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  • Poster for Lord of the Ants

    Lord of the Ants 2022

    Based on true events of the late 60s in Italy, poet, playwright and myrmecologist Aldo Braibanti is prosecuted and sentenced to prison for the love he shares with his barely-of-age pupil and friend, Ettore. Amidst a chorus of voices of accusers, supporters and a largely hypocritical public, a single committed journalist takes on the task of piecing together the truth, between secrecy and desire, facing suspicion and censorship in the process.

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  • Poster for Django & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained

    Django & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained 2021

    A tribute to Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci (1926-90), presented by American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.

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  • Poster for Capri-Revolution

    Capri-Revolution 2018

    In 1914, with Italy on the cusp of joining World War I, a group of foreign artists establishes a commune on the rural island of Capri, catching the attention of young Lucia, a local illiterate shepherdess who soon falls under their spell.

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  • Poster for The Day of the Siege: September Eleven 1683

    The Day of the Siege: September Eleven 1683 2012

    In the summer of 1683, 300 000 Ottoman Empire's warriors begin the siege of Vienna. City's fall, will open way to conquer the Europe. The Sept 11 is the day of main battle between Polish cavalry under the King Jan III Sobieski and Turks.

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  • Poster for Mia Martini - I Am Mia

    Mia Martini - I Am Mia 2019

    The movie is a biopic about Mia Martini, an italian singer who died in 1995.

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  • Poster for Hitler: The Last Ten Days

    Hitler: The Last Ten Days 1973

    Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.

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  • Poster for The Flowers of St. Francis

    The Flowers of St. Francis 1950

    In a series of simple and joyous vignettes, director Roberto Rossellini and co-writer Federico Fellini lovingly convey the universal teachings of the People’s Saint: humility, compassion, faith, and sacrifice. Gorgeously photographed to evoke the medieval paintings of Saint Francis’s time, and cast with monks from the Nocera Inferiore Monastery, The Flowers of St. Francis is a timeless and moving portrait of the search for spiritual enlightenment.

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  • Poster for Caligula: The Untold Story

    Caligula: The Untold Story 1982

    An insane young emperor finds his love of brutality and degradation surpassed only by his hunger for enslaved virgins, cruel vengeance, extreme acts of 'horseplay' and beyond.

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  • Poster for The Damned

    The Damned 2024

    Winter 1862. In the midst of the Civil War, the US Army sends a company of volunteer soldiers to the western territories, with the task of patrolling the unchartered borderlands. As their mission ultimately changes course, the meaning behind their engagement begins to elude them.

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  • Poster for Fort Apache Napoli

    Fort Apache Napoli 2009

    The story of Giancarlo Siani, a journalist killed by the Neapolitan Mafia in 1985.

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  • Poster for The Desert of the Tartars

    The Desert of the Tartars 1976

    Lieutenant Giovanni Drogo is assigned to the old Bastiani border fortress where he expects an imminent attack by nomadic fearsome Tartars.

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  • Poster for Sicilian Letters

    Sicilian Letters 2024

    Loosely based on real events that took place during Matteo Messina Denaro's thirty years on the run. A disgraced politician is gifted a second chance when secret services involve him in an operation to root out an elusive Mafia boss. Using his personal connection as the Boss' godfather, his task is to get him to reveal his hiding place in their secret letters.

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  • Poster for The Purple Sea

    The Purple Sea 2009

    Nothing - not her father, not the church - can stop unruly Angela from being with her childhood best friend turned great love, Sara. Based on a true story, Viola di Mare, presents a uniquely engaging portrait of family, community and gender roles in a 19th century Italian village.

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  • Poster for Miss Marx

    Miss Marx 2020

    In her public persona, Eleanor “Tussy” Marx was a translator, actress, a children’s rights activist and a persuasive labour organizer, a tireless powerhouse determined to carry on her father’s work. She held her own with twentieth century gods, including both her father and his colleague Engels. In her privately life, however, she was vulnerable and her attraction to the self-indulgent and self-important Edward Aveling led her into misery and ultimately proved fatal.

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  • Poster for Operation Ogre

    Operation Ogre 1979

    Spain, 1973. Dictator Francisco Franco has ruled the country since 1939 with an iron fist; but he is now a very old and sick man. The future of the weakened regime is in danger. Admiral Carrero Blanco is his natural successor. The Basque terrorist gang ETA decides that he must die to prevent the dictatorship from continuing.

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  • Poster for The Illusion

    The Illusion 2025

    1860. Giuseppe Garibaldi began from Quarto the adventure of the Thousand surrounded by the enthusiasm of the young idealists who had come from all regions of Italy, and with his loyal group of officers, among whom a new profile stands out, that of Palermo Colonel Vincenzo Giordano Orsini. Among the many militiamen recruited were two Sicilians, Domenico Tricò, a farmer who had emigrated to the North, and Rosario Spitale, an illusionist. Having landed in Sicily, at Marsala, the Thousand begin fighting with the Bourbon army, whose numerical preponderance is immediately evident. Under these conditions, it appears almost impossible for the general to breach the enemy defense and penetrate Palermo. But when he is almost forced to retreat, Garibaldi devises an ingenious plan.

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  • Poster for The Profession of Arms

    The Profession of Arms 2001

    In autumn of 1526, the Emperor, Charles V, sends his German landsknechts led by Georg von Frundsberg to march towards Rome. The inferior papal armies, commanded by Giovanni de'Medici, try to chase them in the midst of a harsh winter. Nevertheless, the Imperial armies manage to cross the rivers along their march and get cannons thanks to the maneuvers of its Lords. In a skirmish, Giovanni de'Medici is wounded in the leg by a falconet shot. The attempts to cure him fail and he dies. The Imperial armies assault Rome. The film is beautifully but unassumingly set, and shows the hard conditions in which war is waged and its lack of glory. It ends straightforwardly with the declaration made after the death of Giovanni de'Medici by the commanders of the armies in Europe of not using again fire weapons because of their cruelty.

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  • Poster for Hannibal

    Hannibal 1959

    A Carthaginian general attempts to cross the Alps with an army of elephants in order to conquer Rome.

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  • Poster for I Fratelli De Filippo

    I Fratelli De Filippo 2021

    The story of the De Filippo brothers, children of Eduardo Scarpetta.

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  • Poster for St. Giuseppe Moscati: Doctor to the Poor

    St. Giuseppe Moscati: Doctor to the Poor 2007

    Giuseppe Moscati, Doctor saint of Naples, was a doctor of the early twentieth century, from an aristocratic family devoted his career to serving the poor. The film focuses on the human side, partially leaving aside the spiritual part.

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  • Poster for Massacre in Rome

    Massacre in Rome 1973

    In the Nazi occupied city of Rome, an assault on an SS brigade draws retaliation from the military governship. "Massacre in Rome" is the true story of how this partisan attack led to the mass execution of Italian nationals under the orders of SS-Lieutenant Colonel Kappler.

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  • Poster for Battlefield

    Battlefield 2024

    These are the years of the First World War and Dr. Stefano Zorzi spends his days in the Exemption Clinic in a large city of Northern Italy, where he not only takes care of soldiers who arrive from the massacre of the front, but also he fights simulation and self-harm of those who hope to be dispensed, by sending them before the Military Court. If Stefano, in fact, does his utmost to heal soldiers and send them back to fight, Dr. Giulio Farradio makes them ill, or helps them to self-injure seriously enough to be exonerated. The two doctors, who went to university together and were great friends, they not only (secretly) challenge each other on a professional level, but also on the sentimental one: they are both linked to Anna, a courageous nurse with a strong character. But when the great ‘Spanish’ fever epidemic arrived in 1918, the time for love, politics and science ends up getting confused dangerously...

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  • Poster for The Fifth Wheel

    The Fifth Wheel 2013

    The life of a working-class boy in Rome through the '70s and '80s, choosing his own path with his friends and family.

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  • Poster for Barbarossa

    Barbarossa 2009

    Year 1100. Italy.The Northern lands are ruled by a German emperor: Fredrick aka "Barbarossa. His dream is to conquer also the lands in the Center and in the South so as to revive the Empire that was once of the one Charles Magno.But in the North a young man from Milan has formed an army of 900 young men coming from different cities: the "company of death". This young man's name is Alberto Da Giussano. His dream is to defeat the Emperor and to give back freedom to the Northern lands.

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  • Poster for The Voyage of Captain Fracassa

    The Voyage of Captain Fracassa 1990

    Serafina, Pulcinella and Isabella are three lusty, beautiful members of a traveling theatrical troupe touring the French countryside in the 17th century, leaving in their wake a crop of broken hearts. This picaresque romantic comedy is based on the 1863 novel Le Capitaine Fracasse by Theophile Gauthier. In the story, the company stops at a castle owned by the scruffy young Baron de Sigognac, who is deeply smitten with the charms of the middle-aged (and somewhat morose) beauty Serafina. He decides to travel with the company, and Serafina perversely tries to get him to woo the youngest of the company, the newly bereaved Isabella.

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  • Poster for The Truce

    The Truce 1997

    After the liberation of Auschwitz, an Italian prisoner of War begins a torturous voyage home to Turin, through a Europe caught between war and peace.

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  • Poster for Genesis: The Creation and the Flood

    Genesis: The Creation and the Flood 1994

    An all-enveloping darkness. Suddenly, a child's voice, frightened, questioning, pierces the darkness... The first flickering rays of light begin to sculpt mysterious shapes out of the darkness... Among them, a very old man. He reassures the child, exhorting him to see the wonders of the earth. And it is with this child's eyes that we will witness the creation of the world.

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  • Poster for The Inner Circle

    The Inner Circle 1992

    Life changes for a Moscow worker when he's made Stalin's personal film projectionist but cannot tell his bride.

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  • Poster for Saint Rita

    Saint Rita 2004

    Cascia, 14th century, Rita Liotti falls in love, gets married and has two children. Her dream of love is soon hindered by a masculine and violent society, that Rita faces with peace and forgiveness. When she loses her husband and her children, she understands she has a mission: pursuing her path of peace, that will lead her to take the vows, and then to become Saint. Rita is a Saint of these days, who lived in a very violent age and was so brave to break free from the vengeance chain, through a deep, sincere and christian forgiveness. She is a particular Saint, talking to everybody’s hearts, as she was everything. She was a daugher, a wife, a mother and a nun, she experienced every sort of life, and in all her different lives she was a living model of christian life.

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  • Poster for The Bloody Judge

    The Bloody Judge 1970

    In 1685 England, an overzealous Lord Chancellor condemns various rebels and "witches" to satisfy his political and sexual whims, ignorant of the true consequences of his actions.

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  • Poster for The Shadow of the Day

    The Shadow of the Day 2022

    Italy, after the promulgation of the racial laws (1938). Luciano, a Fascist-abiding restaurateur, nonetheless believes he can still live by his own rules inside his business. However, everything changes when Anna, a girl with a dangerous secret, starts to work at his restaurant.

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