Vittorio De Sica — Director (23)

Movie

The Roof (1956) IMDb TMDB
Il tetto
other title: Il tetto / O Teto …
Under provincial Italian law at the time, once a roof is erected, the occupants cannot be evicted from a building. This comedy follows the efforts of a family to erect the roof on a house overnight so that a newlywed couple can have their own home.

Movie

Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953) WikiData IMDb TMDB
Stazione Termini
other title: Stazione Termini / Med natekspres Rom-Paris …
While on vacation in Rome, married American Mary Forbes becomes entangled in an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni Doria. As she prepares to leave Italy, Giovanni confesses his love for her; he doesn't want her to go. Together they wander the railroad station where Mary is to take the train to Paris, then ultimately reunite with her husband and daughter in Philadelphia. Will she throw away her old life for this passionate new romance?

Movie

The Children Are Watching Us (1943) WikiData IMDb TMDB
I bambini ci guardano
other title: I bambini ci guardano / Les enfants nous regardent …
In his first collaboration with renowned screenwriter and longtime partner Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica examines the cataclysmic consequences of adult folly on an innocent child. Heralding the pair’s subsequent work on some of the masterpieces of Italian neorealism, The Children Are Watching Us is a vivid, deeply humane portrait of a family’s disintegration.

Movie

A Brief Vacation (1973) WikiData IMDb TMDB
Una breve vacanza
other title: Una breve vacanza / Amargo Despertar …
Forced to support herself, her children, her physically incapacitated husband and her obtrusive brother and mother, a downtrodden working woman contracts tuberculosis. She is granted a brief vacation at a health spa, where a whole new world — and potential new life — is opened up to her.

Movie

The Gold of Naples (1954) WikiData IMDb TMDB
L'oro di Napoli
director: Vittorio De Sica actor: Silvana Mangano / Sophia Loren …
other title: L'oro di Napoli / Das Gold von Neapel …
A tribute to Naples, this film presents six episodes: a clown exploited by a gangster, a pizza seller losing her husband’s ring, a child's funeral, a gambler beaten by a kid, a prostitute's unusual wedding, and a "wisdom seller" offering advice.

Movie

The Last Judgment (1961) WikiData IMDb TMDB
Il giudizio universale
director: Vittorio De Sica actor: Alberto Sordi / Vittorio Gassman …
other title: Il giudizio universale / Das Jüngste Gericht findet nicht statt …
In Naples, a voice from the skies announces one morning that the final judgment will be at 6 p.m. on that day. What follows is a series of vignettes depicting various people's reactions (or lack thereof) to the announcement.

Movie

The Boom (1963) IMDb TMDB
Il boom
director: Vittorio De Sica actor: Alberto Sordi / Gianna Maria Canale …
other title: Il boom / El especulador
Sweet-sour comedy on Italy's 1950s rage to get rich as fast as possible! The businessman wants to satisfy his wife's craving for luxury and a "respectable life" so he becomes heavily indebted. In desperation he agrees to sell a precious part of his body for a large sum of money. But just before the crucial operation he panics...

Movie

The Couples (1970) TMDB
Le coppie
director: Alberto Sordi / Mario Monicelli … actor: Alberto Sordi / Monica Vitti …
other title: Le coppie / Drôles de couples …
Three episodes. Episode 1 - The Refrigerator (Monicelli). A married couple of two poor emigrant workers spend almost all their money to buy a refrigerator (a must in the '70s). The purchase is too expensive for their family balance sheet. To earn some money they decide to go for prostitution. The wife is not so unhappy to the perspective. Episode 2 - The Room (Sordi). To celebrate ten years of marriage a couple decides to spend a quick holiday in top luxury hotels in Sardinia. But the fashion luxury VIP world is too hard to enter; they soon will end in prison. Episode 3 - The Lion (De Sica). Two adulterous, Antonio and Giulia, are blocked by a lion, staying on the exit in the place they met. They both have to come back home, but couldn't move because of the lion’s presence. The critical situation soon drives them to their limit, revealing their real essence.

Movie

A Garibaldian in the Convent (1942) TMDB
Un garibaldino al convento
director: Vittorio De Sica actor: Leonardo Cortese / María Mercader …
other title: Un garibaldino al convento / Un garibaldien au couvent …
An old woman's poignant reminiscence of her youth in a convent school, the happy moments and the sad, and her tragic love for a Garibaldian.

Movie

Miracle in Milan (1951)
Miracolo a Milano
director: Vittorio De Sica actor: Emma Gramatica / Francesco Golisano …
other title: Miracolo a Milano / Miraklet i Milano …
Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.

Movie

The Witches (1967)
Le streghe
director: Luchino Visconti / Mauro Bolognini … actor: Silvana Mangano / Annie Girardot …
other title: Le streghe / Hexen von heute …
Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.

Movie

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
Il giardino dei Finzi Contini
director: Vittorio De Sica actor: Lino Capolicchio / Dominique Sanda …
other title: Il giardino dei Finzi Contini / O Jardim Onde Vivemos …
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.

Movie

Boccaccio '70 (1962)
Boccaccio '70
director: Vittorio De Sica / Federico Fellini … actor: Marisa Solinas / Anita Ekberg …
other title: Boccace 70 / Boccaccio 70 …
An anthology of four comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy: frothy young love and office politics in the big city; milk advertisements that begin to haunt an aging prude; a trophy wife enduring her husband's very public affairs; a lucky ticket-holder at a small town fair.