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Movies like Be Sick… It's Free

Key Features:
Healthcare system, Satire, Bureaucracy, Social commentary, Physician, Italian cinema, Comedy, Doctor, Irony
Tone:
humorous, satirical, witty
Target Audience:
Comedy fans, Viewers interested in social commentary, Fans of Italian cinema, Those who appreciate satire
Emotional Arc:
Amusement → Frustration

Be Sick… It's Free

1968-10-24
Be Sick… It's Free Poster - Find Similar Movies

Comedy about the flawed Italian healthcare system of the time and a doctor's expeirence with it.

Genres
Comedy
Cast
Alberto Sordi, Ida Galli, Bice Valori, Sara Franchetti, Nanda Primavera, Patrizia De Clara, Leopoldo Trieste, Adriana Giuffrè, Pupella Maggio, Claudio Gora
Crew
Luigi Zampa, Alberto Sordi, Luigi Zampa, Sergio Amidei
Rating
7.051(205 votes)
Be Sick… It's FreeBe Sick… It's Free
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Medicine Italian Style

Story of an ambitious young doctor through unethical means intend to make a quick career. Now is primary in a luxury clinic where administers the sick with the same cynicism of his young years.



Il medico dei pazzi

Felice Sciosciammocca, the mayor of Roccasecca, sends his nephew Ciccillo to Naples so that he will become a good doctor.



Fantozzi in Heaven
5.8

One by one, with a sweet but inexorable rate, Ugo's colleagues, go to a better life. When Ugo is attending at one of the innumerable funerals, he and the priest remain involved in an accident. The doctor says that Ugo as only one week left to live



The Surgeons Use Their Hands

Two orderlies pretend to be surgeons to impress two young doctors and conquer, through several scenarios. Finally, they are discovered when they had to operate on a mafia boss to remove a bullet.



The Exorciccio
6

A satire on the American film "The Exorcist," but with an Italian twist.



Well-Off People
4.807

Umberto Maria Durloni is a successful lawyer and a socialite who likes parties and a lavish life. He's got it all, except any ethical qualms.Only a step away from the top, his perfect world crumbles, showing him the brutal do downside to his life.



Anplagghed al Cinema

A queue at the ATM machine, a displaced family after a seismic shock that has half-washed their home, a tour within an art gallery, moments of everyday life that become the cues for the emergence of comic, farce, paradoxical situations – trademarks of one of the most successful Italian comic groups.



Why
Why(1971)
7.244

Giuseppe Di Noi, an Italian surveyor living in Swiden, gets arrested at the border while going back to Italy with his family for a vacation. But can someone tell the man why?



Grande, grosso e... Verdone

A comic movie divided in three episodes.



Complexes
Complexes(1965)
6.956

In the first episode, Quirino tries to conquer co-worker Gabriella. In the second episode, Prof. Beozi ends up in a raid of the police in a local for homosexuals when trying to avoid a scandal. In the third episode, Guglielmo passes all tests in order to become reader of the television news brilliantly, although the commission works with all subtleness's to exclude him.



Poor but Richer
5.681

The Tucci family discovers that they have not really lost all their money and, refusing to pay Italian taxes, decides to turn Torresecca into a tax haven, relying on a post-Italian unification bureaucratic oversight.



Sicko
Sicko(2007)
7.352

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.



Caruso Pascoski (di padre polacco)

Psychiatrist Caruso is arguably as nutty as his patients. He can remember at two years old being completely besotted by the charms of a naked girl. Even today, he can think of little else besides sex, sex, sex.



Toto and the Kings of Rome

An aging, down-and-out public employee must face the primary school examination.



Fantozzi to the Rescue

Fantozzi is now retired but continues to go to the office where it is held up as a fine example of employees intending to do career.



The New Monsters Today

Talks about the fears, vices and weaknesses that bedevil the contemporary Italian society. Highlights the degeneration that is plaguing certain quarters of the Italian society today.



Viva l'Italia
6.274

The story of a leading political man, suddenly telling “all the truth” after a serious illness and therefore overwhelming lifes of anyone surrounding him…



The Boom
The Boom(1963)
6.808

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...



Nineties Part II
5.4

Second scandalously famous collections of short Italian comedies of the 90s! All that was "fun" in those years in Italy - all here! The sea of black humor on all issues - sex, politics, mafia, crime, TV...



Fantozzi: White Collar Blues

A good-natured but unlucky Italian is constantly going on a difficult situations, but never lose his mood.



Whatsoeverly
6.1

Corrupt and sleazy entrepreneur Cetto La Qualunque comes back to Italy and "jumps into politics" lest his law-abiding opponent, Giovanni De Santis, is elected as mayor.



The Traffic Policeman
7.354

An unemployed man gets a job as traffic policeman but the traffic in the big city creates innumerous problems for the poor guy.



Nineties
Nineties(1992)
5.5

Scandalously famous collections of short Italian comedies of the 90s! All that was "fun" in those years in Italy - all here! The sea of black humor on all issues - sex, politics, mafia, crime, TV...



Traffic Jam
6.8

A tremendous congestion hits the Rome highway ring. The biggest traffic jam ever seen lasts more than 36 hours. At the beginning the people blocked in their cars react normally. But as more time passes, the more we witness personal dramas, hysteric reactions and other grotesque situations. All the episodes are linked as if in a single plot. Cars and their hosts are a microcosm of stories part of a larger universe: the congestion.



Property Is No Longer a Theft

A young bank teller, literally allergic to paper money, becomes the worst nightmare of his best customer, a wealthy butcher who manages his business unscrupulously.



La vita facile
6.2

An Italian doctor starts a new life in Kenya to escape the city, but life catches up with him when an old friend offers his assistance along with his wife, who happens to be an old lover.



Ammutta Muddica al Cinema

Film adaptation of the theatrical show Ammutta muddica performed by the trio composed of Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo. The protagonist of the various sketches is the common everyday life, full of bizarre characters and comic situations.



Il conte Max
7.1

Alberto, a newspaper man, tries a one-time shot of living the good life with the help of his penniless mentor.



Italiano medio
5.806

A committed environmentalist whose hyperfixation with everything that's wrong with the world is taking a toll on his marriage tries a pill that reduces human brain capacity from the usual 20% to a mere 2%. Which puts him on a par with your typical man on the street.



Gli onorevoli
6.82

Some political candidates are determined to win the electors' preference during an election campaign in Italy.



Happily Mixed Up
6.138

A psychoanalyst learns to have an illness and as a consequence he decides to quit his job. All his patients get together to find a way to make him feel better.



A Good Doctor
6.5

On Christmas eve, Serge is the only on-call emergency doctor available. Struck by a crippling back-ache, he gets help from a pizza delivery boy who will need to step in the doctor's shoes.



The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

After suffering terrible headaches and stomach cramps, Mr. Lăzărescu, a lonely 63 year-old man, calls for an ambulance, beginning one man’s hellish journey through Bucharest hospitals in search of proper medical care. As the night unfolds, his health starts to deteriorate fast.



It’s the Law
6.556

A small Sicilian town elects a new, honest major but quickly learns that playing by the rules is not as easy as it seems.



Il Ministro
5.635

Franco Lucci is an entrepreneur on the verge of bankruptcy. The salvation of his company hangs on a large public contract that he could obtain thanks to the intervention of a minister who has become a friend and whom he has invited to dinner. Together with Michele, his partner and brother-in-law, Franco has organized the perfect evening: in addition to paying him a large bribe, the two arrange for him to find a girl willing to sleep with him in exchange for a recommendation. All under the eyes of Rita, Franco's wife, who tries to indulge her husband in his last desperate attempt to obtain the million-dollar contract. Because of the girl, the evening takes an unexpected turn.



The Marquis of Grillo

In 18th-century Rome, impish aristocrat Onofrio del Grillo amuses himself by playing pranks on all sorts of people — his reactionary family and fellow nobles, the poors, the French occupiers trying to modernize society, and even the Pope himself.



Bianco, rosso e Verdone

Three Italians travel to their hometown to vote for elections: Pasquale is a Southern immigrant living in Munich who's genuinely happy to come back to Italy, even if just for a few days, but the country he dreams of is far from reality; Furio travels to Rome with his family, but his niggling attitude threatens to push his wife Magda over the edge; young Mimmo is also going to Rome, but the trip is repeatedly interrupted by worries about his grandma's health.



Si muore tutti democristiani

Enrico, Fabrizio and Stefano are three left-winged friends.



Young Doctors in Love
5.237

An 'Airplane!'-style spoof of hospital soap operas—a brilliant young trainee can't stand the sight of blood; a doctor romances the head nurse in order to get the key to the drugs cabinet; and there's a mafioso on the loose disguised as a woman.



The Jokes
The Jokes(2004)
4.5

In many small episodes, various characters represent the typical vices and comedy of Italian society in early 2000.



Tuttapposto
6.5

Roberto is a student in a corrupt university where teachers sell exams and only hire friends and relatives.



Everything Everything Nothing Nothing

Cetto and its city council were arrested, but in prison the conspiratorial former mayor makes no earning name as the gratitude of the powerful secretary. These decide to replace some MPs mysteriously killed precisely with Cetto and two other characters: Rodolfo Favaretto and Frengo Stop



Fantozzi Still Suffers

After a hard day at work and a condominium-board meeting, accountant Ugo Fantozzi goes on a trip with his family. Unfortunately, he will face a nasty surprise upon his return.



Mom or Dad?
5.839

A divorced couple fights for the custody of their three children: neither of them wants it. Mom wants to leave them to dad, and vice versa.



Italians
Italians(2009)
5.7

Two stories of Italians abroad: in Dubai, a truck driver who smuggles Ferraris for a living teaches the tricks of the trade to his young disciple; in Russia, a clumsy dentist experiences the consequences of sex tourism.



Toto, Fabrizi and the Young People Today

A boy and a girl fall in love but their fathers take a strong dislike to each other, clashing repeatedly during the preparations for the upcoming marriage.



The Handyman
6.2

We are all equal before the law, but some are just more equal than others. Antonio is a trainee lawyer who dreams of joining his mentor’s prestigious firm. But Salvatore “Toti” Bellastella, the Prince of the Forum, is also an exploitative tyrant! He asks Antonio any kind of task: from being his assistant to driver, from paralegal to personal cook! When Antonio brilliantly passes the bar, he gets the offer of becoming a partner in the firm, but there is still one condition: he must marry Isabel, Toti’s lover, an Argentinian girl who needs the Italian citizenship. It looks like just another little “favor” for his boss. So Antonio accepts… and he’s really in a sea of trouble.



Aspirante vedovo
4.895

A ne'er-do-well who's married to a millionnaire realizes his financial trouble might be solved if his wife was dead - and sets out a plot to achieve just that. A remake of Dino Risi's "il vedovo".



Like Crazy
7.391

Two mental patients with opposite personalities ditch their Tuscan hospital and embark on an unpredictable exploration of the real world.



You Upset Me
6.6

The first movie directed by Roberto Benigni in four surreal short stories: "Durante Cristo" (During Christ), "Angelo" (Angel), , "In Banca" (At the Bank) and "I Due Militi" (The Two Soldiers). An excursus in Benigni's satirical views on man, religion and society.



Totò, Peppino and... the Sweet Life

Antonio goes to Rome to represent his fellow peasants, to request a highway that will be built in their region. But the guy is mastered by 'la dolce vita' and wastes the money entrusted to him for his mission. When Peppino is sent to to find out what happened, he lets himself be trapped by the gentle grip of 'la dolce vita'



Cops and Robbers
7.542

Esposito is a thief who cons tourists in Rome. Officer Bottoni manages to catch him and starts persecuting him. When Esposito manages to flee, Bottoni's superiors inform him that he'll lose his job if he can't catch Esposito.



Ugly, Dirty and Bad

Giacinto lives with his wife, their ten children and various other family members in a shack on the hills of Rome. Some time ago he has lost his left eye while at work, and got a consistent sum of money from the insurance company, which he keeps hidden from the rest of the family. His whole life is now based on defending the money he sees as his own, while the rest of the family tries to kill him.



Poverty and Nobility

Eugene, a young nobleman, asks two penniless idlers to impersonate his noble relatives to help him marry Gemma, the daughter of an enriched cook.



Serafino
Serafino(1968)
6

Serafino, a young and innocent shepherd, inherits a huge fortune. He immediately starts spending the entire sum on presents for his friends, causing the envy of his family.



The Rich, the Pauper and the Butler

A wealthy broker, his loyal butler, and a poor street seller all see their social positions change in a twist of fate.



Delusions of Grandeur

Don Sallust is the minister of the King of Spain. Being disingenuous, hypocritical, greedy and collecting the taxes for himself, he is hated by the people he oppresses. Accused by The Queen, a beautiful princess Bavarian, of having an illegitimate child to one of her maids of honor, he was stripped of his duties and ordered to retire to a monastery.



The Widower
7.411

Alberto Nardi is a Roman businessman who fancies himself a man of great capabilities, but whose factory teeters perennially on the brink of catastrophe. Alberto is married to a rich and successful businesswoman from Milan, Elvira Almiraghi who has a no-nonsense attitude and barely tolerates the attempts of her husband to keep his factory afloat with her money.



The Hospital
6.559

Dr. Bock, the chief of medicine at a Manhattan hospital, is suicidal after the collapse of his personal life. When an intern is found dead in a hospital bed, it appears to Bock to be a case of unforgivable malpractice. Hours later, another doctor, who happens to be responsible for another case of malpractice, is found dead. Despondent, Bock finds himself drawn to Barbara, the daughter of a comatose missionary.



Addio fottuti musi verdi

Young Ciro Priello, an ultra-skilled Neapolitan graphic, can not find a job that satisfies and appreciates him. After sending the curriculum practically everywhere, he just have to send a copy in space. He will thus be able to work for an alien society based on competence and meritocracy.



Buona giornata
4.949

A common day in the actual Italy, narrated by the different stories of seven different people, it's the starting point for an overview to the 21st century's italian society, among corrupt politicians, unfaithful husbands, hardcore soccer fans and dishonest businessmen.



Battlefield
6.41

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...



Divorce Italian Style

Ferdinando Cefalù is desperate to marry his cousin, Angela, but he is married to Rosalia and divorce is illegal in Italy. To get around the law, he tries to trick his wife into having an affair so he can catch her and murder her, as he knows he would be given a light sentence for killing an adulterous woman. He persuades a painter to lure his wife into an affair, but Rosalia proves to be more faithful than he expected.



The Salt of Life

Gianni is sixty. He is retired but has not become lazy for all that. In fact he is a helpful fellow who gives a hand to all those who need one: shopping for his wife, walking the pretty neighbor's dog, and so on. Everybody likes Gianni, but is it for the right reasons? Doesn't his wife profit by the situation (she still works so it is only logical that Gianni do all the chores)? Isn't he subject to the excruciating whims of his rich mother?... Sure, everybody LIKES Gianni, but who LOVES him? Agreed, being kind to them, he is the ladies pet, but he does not attract them anymore. That is why, when his macho lawyer friend Alfonso blames him for not having young mistresses "like every other senior Italian male", Gianni, who is beginning to ask himself questions about what it is like to become old, starts chasing dames.



Korkusuz Korkak
7.6

He is a civil servant in the bland state office. His whole life changes when his reports get mixed up in the hospital and he gets news that he's going to die very soon.



Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Three tales of very different women using their sexuality as a means to getting what they want.



Everybody Go Home!
7.603

When Italy surrenders to the Allies, part of the Italian army is dispersed and soldiers begin to return to their homes.



Carry On Doctor
6.5

Francis Bigger, a notorious charlatan who tours the country lecturing on the subject of mind over matter, slips off the platform in the middle of his performance and ends up in hospital under the care of Dr Tinkle. The hospital is about to enter a period of total chaos.



Boris: The Film
6.9

A director and his crew attempt to make the transition from the small to the big screen.



Totò vs the Four
6.7

The day of Chief Constable Saracino begins badly when his new car is stolen. Then, in his office, he meets Alfredo Fiori who believes that his wife and her lover, a veterinary, are trying to murder him.



Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Rome, Italy. After committing a heinous crime, a senior police officer exposes evidence incriminating him because his moral commitment prevents him from circumventing the law and the social order it protects.



Rimini Rimini
4.8

Funny, entertaining comedy with a few storylines. All of them have one thing in common - a resort town of Rimini in Italy.



Unlikely Revolutionaries

Five ordinary people disillusioned with politics—a perennial temp, a docker, a university professor, a TV reporter, and a convict—decide to kidnap a politician, to dispense justice and use the ransom money to compensate the family of a blue-collar worker who died in workplace accident.



Some Say No
5.7

Some Say No is a new Italian comedy with a very serious subject: the way the country's society is corroded by favoritism that pushes inferior people to the top in virtually every field. In Florence, three thirty-somethings band together to wage their own war on the system. Each of them is a person of talent who has been pushed out by "favorites" or raccomandati, people who have muscled in on the promotions they ought to have gotten by pulling strings.



The New Comics
5.331

A few funny little novels about different aspects of life.



Fun Is Beautiful
7.121

Three characters' misadventures in semi-deserted, summertime Rome: a dim-witted mama's boy falls for a tourist; a would-be womanizer struggles to find company for his sex tourism trip to Kraków; a hippie is drawn into his father's schemes to bring him back into polite society.



Santocielo
5.955

In paradise, a group gathers to discuss why people still act selfishly, even though Jesus sacrificed himself for them 2,000 years ago. As a result, a new Messiah is sent to Earth to address the issue.



My Friends Act III
6.4

This time the "amici" (friends) are just four: Necchi, Meandri, Mascetti and Sassaroli. Nevertheless they are older they still love to spend their time mainly organizing irresistible jokes to everyone in every kind of situation. Mascetti is hospitalized in a geriatric clinic. Of course the place become immediately the main stage for all their jokes. After some jokes they decided to place an ultimate incredible and farcical joke to the clinic guests.



Forgive Us Our Debts

Threatened by creditors, a newly unemployed man agrees to work for a debt collector, but soon discovers his deal with the devil has unexpected costs.



Ears
Ears(2016)
7.1

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.



Tutto molto bello
3.736

Antonio and Giuseppe meet at the hospital, while awaiting the birth of their respective first children. The two leave together for a quick lunch, ending up involved against their will in an odyssey of amusing setbacks and bizarre characters.



We Can Do That
7.2

The film follows Nello, the recently hired director of a newly developed work cooperative of former mental patients. After the closure of state psychiatric hospitals and asylums in Italy under the Basaglia Law many former patients were left with few resources and little hope of reintegrating into society. With the intention of actually improving the lives of his pupils, rather than just sedating them, Nello encourages them to expand their individual abilities and explore the wider world around them although, regardless of intention, there is sometimes a price to pushing boundaries too quickly.



March on Rome
7.4

March on Rome (Italian: La marcia su Roma) is a 1962 comedy film by Dino Risi with Vittorio Gassman and Ugo Tognazzi, aimed at describing the March on Rome of Benito Mussolini's black shirts from the point of view of two newly recruited, naïve black shirts



Tiramisu
Tiramisu(2016)
5.3

Antonio, a representative of medical supplies with no success, finds a brilliant way to present himself to the customers and improve his sales: the special tiramisù made by his beautiful wife Aurora.



Ugly Nasty People
5.8

A group of physically disabled lowlifes plots the the perfect heist, but things go south as each reveals an agenda of their own.



Made in Italy
6.067

Riko is an honest and hardworking man who can count on a group of real friends and a loving wife. Things change after he loses his job and experiences a midlife crisis.



Dr. Knock
Dr. Knock(1951)
7.357

Saint-Maurice, an ordinary peaceful village, lived healthily so much so that the local doctor's practice was scant. But that was before Dr. Parpalaid retired and was replaced by a charlatan by the name of Knock. A real genius this one, for he soon managed to persuade everyone that they were ill. And not only didn't they resent him but they even loved their physician, who made a fortune and brought prosperity to the village by turning it into a big hospital.



El patrullero 777
7.78

Follows Diogenes as he goes about his day as a police officer. He's prone to do things the right way, surrounded by a pretty much corrupt & citizen distant police department, & always resolves his duties with a personal method.



Compromessi sposi

A young fashion blogger and an aspiring songwriter seem to have not that much in common, but when Cupid’s arrow hits them, every difference fades away and overnight they decide to get married. Even their fathers do not have anything in common: Gaetano is a strict mayor from Southern Italy, while Diego is a rich entrepreneur from the North. Between the two forthcoming in-laws, instead, is hate at first sight. They seem to agree on one single common goal: prevent this marriage at any cost! After fighting by any means in a struggle that will also involve their two bizarre families, will they manage to say no to the wedding?



Belli di papà
5.913

The wealthy businessman Vincenzo realizes that he is a father too absent, but also that his two sons and 1aughter are spoiled and unable to support themselves economically. So Vincenzo stages their fraudulent bankruptcy and runs with their children in Taranto, in his old house. The boys are struggling to settle, but Vincenzo is confident about them and hope that they will soon find a job in the city. Meanwhile, an impostor blackmailer, who wants to marry the daughter of Vincenzo, arrives in Puglia, to expose the scam.



Night Nurse
5.1

A dentist invites a elderly patient to stay at his home to recover, unaware that he is a jewel thief. He plans to steal a valuable diamond but then runs into a beautiful nurse who, aside from constantly stripping nude, has plans of her own.



Perdiamoci di vista

Comic tale of a cynical TV star's slow-combustion romance with a young paraplegic.



The King of the Street Cleaners

Going through his daily routine in a stereotypical neighborhood, a street cleaner falls in love with a charwoman. Unfortunately for him, so does his superior officer.



The Second Tragic Fantozzi

The frustrating adventures of a humble employee who all the time has to fullfill the wishes and desires of his bosses.



Reality
Reality(2012)
7.112

A dark comedy centering on the lives of a Neapolitan based family whose father, a fish merchant, is so infatuated with the reality TV show "Grande Fratello" (the Italian version of "Big Brother") he starts living his life as if he were on it.



The Seduction of Mimi
7.103

Voting against the Mafia in what he thinks is a secret ballot costs Sicilian laborer Mimi his livelihood. He leaves his wife, flees to Turin and romances a Communist organizer – but he just can’t shake the Mafia. When they lure Mimi back to Sicily with a better job, he must keep his lover – and love child – under wraps. That’s when his wife announces she’s pregnant.



The Wheelchair
6.806

Don Anselmo, a retired old man, decides to buy a motorized disabled stroller since all his pensioner friends own one. His family strongly refuses him to purchase the vehicle, so don Anselmo decides to take extreme measures to achieve his goal…



Aprile
Aprile(1998)
7.3

Nanni Moretti takes another look at the ebbs and flows of life in April 1996, as he becomes a father for the first time and seems unable to focus on his documentary about the upcoming national elections.



Nati stanchi
6.839

Salvo and Valentino are two happy Sicilian friends, who do not want to work, because they know that if they find a permanent job, their girlfriends will ask them to marry them.

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