ContromanoMovies like Contromano
- Key Features:
- Culture clash, Kidnapping, Social satire, Misunderstanding, Road trip, Character transformation, Italian cinema, Stereotypes, Prejudice, Friendship, Redemption
- Tone:
- humorous, satirical
- Target Audience:
- World cinema enthusiasts, Comedy fans, Social commentary appreciators
- Emotional Arc:
- Amusement → Reflection
Contromano

Mario Cavallaro is 50 and lives in the same district of always in Milano and fears changes until arrives Oba, a Senegalese seller of socks so he decides to kidnap Oba and take him back to Senegal.
Contromano
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.

A comedy that chronicles a chance encounter between Robert and a Chinese named Jun who wanders lost through the city of Buenos Aires in search of his uncle after being assaulted by a taxi driver and his henchmen.

Longing for a brighter future, two Senegalese teenagers embark on a journey from West Africa to Italy. However, between their dreams and reality lies a labyrinth of checkpoints, the Sahara Desert, and the vast waters of the Mediterranean.

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.

Antonio's first day as a thief is marked by tears. During an incursion at the mall, his mother is arrested. Some 20 years later, Antonio along with his two inseparable friends, after some minor robberies, take on a post office. Things don't go as planned.

From his village in northern Senegal, Yao is a 13-year-old boy ready to do anything to meet his hero: Seydou Tall, a famous French actor. Invited to Dakar to promote his new book, the latter goes to his country of origin for the first time. To fulfill his dream, the young Yao organizes his fugue and brave 387 kilometers alone to the capital. Touched by this child, the actor decides to flee his obligations and to accompany him home. But on the dusty and uncertain roads of Senegal, Seydou understands that while rolling towards the village of the child, it also rolls towards its roots.

Maroso Golfetto, a firm manager from Veneto, is known for his frequent yelling at his employees, who are either immigrants or Southern Italians. He regularly appears on the local TV channel to denounce the evils of immigration, and his popularity extends to children. His speeches resonate more deeply with people than those of Lucia, their anti-racist schoolmistress. One morning, a miracle occurs: by invoking the help of God to rid Veneto of its immigrants, all the immigrants disappear. However, is this truly a blessing?

Fedele and Vittorio are two brothers who married the daughters of a rich entrepreneur, Siniscalco. But while Fedele is an irreproachable husband, Vittorio cheats on his wife and accumulates gambling debts, until one day his car is found at the bottom of a lake and he is left for dead. Six years later, however, the extraordinary news arrives: Vittorio is alive and is in Cuba, where he lives by scamming tourists. Fedele then leaves with the intention of bringing him back to his family.

Con man Aldo breaks out of jail and seizes a car at gunpoint, taking its passengers—bumbling police officer Giacomo and nitpicking civilian Giovanni—hostages. An unlikely friendship blossoms.

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.

Naples/Sorrento, mid 20s. A couple of small thieves conceive a scam whereby one of them dresses up as a eunuch Turk to care for the women of the family of a wealthy man. They end up messing everything up, with lots of gags and funny events in the meantime.

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.

Aldo and Vittorio are two men suffering from disabilities. One is blind, the other is forced to a wheelchair. Vittorio one day by chance meets Aldo in the hospice and invites him to take a pleasure trip to Sanremo in Liguria. In fact Vittorio, though blind, is a cheat who’s in trouble.

Now in the Far North (i.e. Milan!), Alberto has accepted to manage a program for efficiency improvement in the Italian Post. He devotes all his time and all his energy to this noble task and neglects his wife Silvia, which of course annoys her beyond limits. Things do not fare much better in Castellabate where it is rather Maria, Matta's wife, who gets on his nerves by always blaming him for his lack of ambition. One day, due to a misunderstanding, Mattia is transferred to... Milan! And on whose doorstep does he land? Alberto's of course!

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?

A Milanese businessman is beside himself when his son tells him he's going to marry the daughter of a pizza maker from Naples.

Roberto, a shy law student in Rome, meets Bruno, a forty-year-old exuberant, capricious man, who takes him for a drive through the Roman and Tuscany countries in the summer. When their journey starts to blend into their daily lives though, the pair’s newfound friendship is tested.

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.

Destinies intertwined for two antithetical people who meet during a trip to India, where lots of misunderstandings and funny situations will take place.

Antonio is a 30 year old family man, whose life finds an unexpected twist when he's suddenly dumped by his husband, whom he depends both psychologically and economically: he needs to find a new place to stay, a job and a new purpose in life. Antonio finds a room in an apartment owned by Denis and starts to work in a bakery owned by Luca, while attending pastry school. Through this process he discovers that it was wrong of him to give up his independence for the sake of his relationship in the past.

Missing the train is very bad. Seeing it leave with your children and those of your friends you had to accompany on vacation is a whole other story ... that of the crazy pursuit from Turin to Sicily of a father and grandfather as different as they are unreliable.

After learning that an old friend of theirs has been arrested in Morocco on drug charges, four former college buddies set out for Marrakech to bail him out.

Michele is a superficial man with nothing but contempt for other people and who lives only to show off his wealth on social media, until he finds himself mistaken for a North African immigrant in Eastern Europe and deported.

The life of two men changed unexpectedly when Ajith, an Indian sailor who was robbed and lost everything, appears out of nowhere in front of Pierre, a single and grumpy Frenchman.

A few weeks before the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Pago, Rice and Bibi leave the calm city of Cesena looking for adventure: a ten-days-long holiday in Eastern Europe, in those places where the Soviet regime is still alive.

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.

Valentino Tarocco invents a new life as a famous Milanese designer. He has removed all connection with the past, but an accident will bring him back to his twenties, causing him to recover his Apulian dialect and love for his origins.

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.

A group of former high school classmates meets for a reunion 15 years after graduation, only to discover that any innocence or friendship is long lost.

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

The Milanese Donato returns from Spain, animated by the serious intention to go back to being the "ras della fossa". Second chapter of the famous 80s cult.

Ayiva recently left his home in Burkina Faso in search of a way to provide for his sister and his daughter. He takes advantage of his position in an illegal smuggling operation to get himself and his best friend Abas off of the continent. Ayiva adapts to life in Italy, but when tensions with the local community rise, things become increasingly dangerous. Determined to make his new situation work he attempts to weather the storm, but it has its costs.

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

Antonio, Peppino and Lucia are three brothers who live in the country near Naples. Lucia's son, Gianni, goes to Naples to study medicine, but there he knows a ballet dancer. They fall in love and, when she goes to Milan, Gianni follows her. Informed of this and afraid that their nephew will stop studying, the three Caponi brothers leave for Milan to persuade Gianni to come back and continue studying and abandon the "Malafemmina" (bad girl).

Antonio takes a hit on his head when he's out to buy a jar of mushrooms for his wife, and loses his memory. He reappears five years later unaware that time has passed.

When Debora's ex-husband, a popular neomelodic singer, loses his life in a stage dive, she worries that her 11-year-old son Ciro may be showing symptoms of depression. Taken to a child psychologist, shy Tommaso, Ciro eventually confesses to him that it's not his father's death that has got him down, it's love for his classmate, the cute Ludovica. The two make a deal: Tommaso will help Ciro to win the affections of Ludovica, while Ciro will give Tommaso a hand at having a chance with his mother.

In a parallel universe, live people’s precious consciences. They all feel disheartened, demotivated, and unheard, except for Otto (Francesco Scianna). He is the top-ranked conscience, because his human Filippo (Filippo Scicchitano) follows him blindly, guaranteeing him happiness.

Cetto la Qualunque, having set aside all political ambition, is now nothing more than an entrepreneur. But the news of the worsening condition of his aunt leads him to return to Italy, where something from his past will be revealed and, “doubtlessly,” all of our lives will be forever changed.

In this Franco-Italian gangster parody, a shopkeeper on his way to an Italian holiday suffers a crash that totals his car. The culprit can only compensate his ruined trip by driving an American friend's car from Naples to Bordeaux, but as it happens to be filled with such contraband as stolen money, jewelry and drugs, the involuntary and unwitting companions in crime soon attract all but recreational attention from the "milieu".

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.

A visa problem forces Adrien back to Paris after 15 years in Senegal with his wife Aminata. Her cousin Sékou, now distanced from his Senegalese origins, takes in Adrien. As Adrien awaits his return, Sékou shows him France, sparking surprises.

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.

Three friends see their end-of-summer motorhome holiday trip hijacked by Viola, a beautiful girl on the run from both the law and violent gangsters after a robbery.

Four strangers meet through an app to share a car ride that turns into an adventure destined to change the lives of those involved.

A couple of friends work for a taxi driver to rob his passengers, but they feel like they're getting ripped off. They decide to plan their own robberies, but they are amateurs and things don't go too well. One of the youths, Cordoba, whose girlfriend Sandra is pregnant, just wants to get enough cash so they can leave Argentina and get to Uruguay to start a new life. He and his friends plan one last robbery, but things don't go as planned.

Yuri Pelagatti is a stage actor who is left jobless after a traumatic separation that resulted in his inability to remember his lines. Arturo Merlino is a shabby “investigator” who chases cats escaped from their homes. When Arturo and Yuri cross paths, Yuri is under the mistaken impression that Arturo is a consummate professional. He contracts Arturo to follow his ex-wife in order to find proof of her infidelity. But when he accidentally comes into the possession of a mysterious suitcase containing 1 million Euro, a series of hilarious troubles and daring adventures will result in an unpredictable finale…

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.

A 22 year-old Bangladeshi-Italian Muslim boy meets a beautiful, exciting Italian girl who makes him re-analyze his beliefs and culture.

Expert conman Joe Thanks teams up with half-breed Bill and naive Lucy to steal $300,000 from the Indian-hating Major Cabot. Their elaborate plan is full of disguises, double-crosses, and chases, but Joe always seems to know what he's doing.

An aimless college graduate jumping from one job interview to another — killing time in between with his wisecracking and deadbeat room-mate — falls in love with an actress.

The life and times of Armando Feroci, a fortyish year old, who's been everything, a divorced husband, a careless father, an unreliable brother. The story is told in flashback by his friends while Armando has been mysteriously kidnapped in an Arab country by an integralist group and condemned to death.

Diego Abatantuono in the shoes of three huge fans: the Juventus truck driver Tirzan, the head of the ultra Milanese Donato and the Franco inter.

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.

In Palmi, a small town in Calabria, Don Vincenzo, a genial retired farmer, has a crazy idea to revive the local soccer team by organizing a bizarre fundraiser hiring the Italian major league Serie A, soccer player Etienne Morville, a bad-tempered guy but among the strongest in the world. Albeit unwillingly, Morville leaves Milan to move to Palmi and try to save his image. In the small town he will come up against a reality of sincerity, which will lead everyone on an unforgettable experience.

Carlo, on vacation in South Africa with his second wife Susanna meets her younger brother Giorgio.

Lorenzo works for a rent-a-friend company. One day, his services are required for suicidial businessman Alberto.

September 1943: in the general confusion a thief dressed as a priest and a sergeant exchange clothes and roles.

Mory, a cowherd, and Anta, a university student, try to make money in order to go to Paris and leave their boring past behind.

Friends Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo travel from north to south for Giacomo's wedding: the father of the bride, a tyrannical rich man who is both their boss and father-in-law—since Aldo and Giovanni have also married into the family—has entrusted them with a costly piece of modern art, one that looks just like a rather unremarkable wooden leg.

A middle-aged man dissatisfied with the present state of things finds himself in a parallel universe where all technology is stuck in the 1990s.

When Altan swipes prescription drugs from his brother Nuri's pharmacy, they soon find themselves on a dangerous but funny road trip to get rid of the stuff and escape the mafiosi Altan tried to double-cross. Along the way, the brother who are compete opposites finally bond.

Three partisans bound by a strong friendship return home after the war, but the clash with everyday reality puts a strain on their bond.

This is the story of two completely opposite households: the Pavone are intellectual and bourgeois, the Vismara are proletarian and fascists. They are two tribes sharing the same jungle: Rome. A trivial accident brings these two poles together. The madness of a 25-year old youth will set them on a collision course, discovering the cards to reveal that everyone has a secret. People are never what they seem – but we are all predators in the end.

Plastic surgeon Michel Saint-Josse is on his way to Spain where he hopes to spend a stress-free holiday in a luxury hotel with his teenage daughter Vanessa. When his car breaks down near a camping, Michel accepts the offer of help from an extrovert gigolo camper named Patrick Chirac. Whilst their car is being repaired, Michel and Vanessa agree to stay in Patrick’s well proportioned tent, not knowing that, thanks to a series of mishaps, it will be their home for several days...

Marco encounters his ex-girlfriend Consueloand starts seeing her without telling that he has just married. Antonio is an MP and during his European trip he has a love affair with elegant Olga who has a big secret to hide. Recently-jilted Fabio is mistaken for psychiatrist by a beautiful girl Valentina with whom he falls in love. A divorce lawyer Sandra is romantically attracted to her client's husband Massimo.

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?

Priest Don Camillo blackmails his friendly rival Peppone into letting him join a Communist delegation visiting the Soviet Union.

Checco is a young Apulian entrepreneur dreamer who has opened a sushi restaurant in his Apulia. However, after one month, the restaurant went bankrupt and he chose to emigrate to Africa to escape from debt. Here he adapts to being a waiter in a resort in Kenya, but at the outbreak of a civil war he decides to embark on a stowaway trip on a boat for migrants to Europe and chooses to do it with his African friends. However, he would not like to return to Italy, but rather to go to Liechtenstein where banking secrecy is in force and there is a lower tax burden than in Italy.

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.

When his wife wants a divorce -- in preference of a romantic Frenchman -- husband Livio seemingly accepts. But when he sets up a last weekend together with his secretary and his wife's lover, the trip turns out to be part of an elaborate plan to win his wife back.

When a brothel closes because of new laws, four of the prostitutes decide to go into business running a restaurant. They discover they cannot escape their past.

Elena and Antonio seem not to be made for each other. They are too different in terms of character, life choices, worldview, and the way they relate to others. They are total opposites. However, they are overwhelmed by a mutual attraction they're trying hard to avoid; but to which they succumb to.

To avoid jail, a tax-dodging businessman is sentenced to a year of community service in a homeless shelter.

After serving prison time for a juvenile offense, Freddo gathers his old buddies Libano and Dandi and embarks on a crime spree that makes the trio the most powerful gangsters in Rome. Libano loves their new status, and seeks to spread their influence throughout the underworld, while the other two pursue more fleshly desires. For decades, their gang perpetrates extravagant crimes, until paranoia threatens to split the friends apart.

A man is forced to completely change his habits when he decides to move from the country to the city.

A group of middle-aged time-share investors get ripped off and their desire for revenge is well-timed for them to be recruited by a bank clerk who feels the same about his employers.

A French tradesman travels in time and liberates an oppressed tribe in another world.

A bureaucratic snafu sends Marco Tullio Sperelli, a portly, middle-aged northern Italian, to teach third grade in a poor town outside Naples

Inspector Rizzo in Napoli gets a message from a policeman from South Africa who wants to meet him. Immediately before this meeting the South African policeman is killed. Dying he shows Rizzo a picture of his young son Bodo. Rizzo travels to Johannesburg to find out what the policeman was working on and to find Bodo.

To find Joseba, a dying friend, and see him reunite with his daughter Ely, two old friends, Jean Pierre and Tocho, embark with her on a road trip through the Sahara desert, from Spain to Mali.

Three Italian retirees embark on a journey to find a new country to live in.

Cesare Proietti is the esteemed manager of the Relais Colombo, a luxury hotel in Milan. When a group of new Chinese business partners want to revolutionize everything, the hotel owner's daughter, Luciana, decides to fire Cesare. When Cesare discovers Luciana is looking for a caregiver who can look after her father, he decides to dress up as a charming woman to apply for the role.

Four friends become stranded in Eastern Europe and have to become hit men, prostitutes, corrupt cops, smugglers and more to make it home.

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.

During a hot Sunday afternoon in a small Southern Italian town, a school serving as a polling place is occupied by a group of three locals and an Eritrean immigrant, all unemployed, desperate and armed.

Construction worker Oreste and young fiancee Adelaide meet Nello, a cook in a pizzeria. This love triangle often goes to communist rallies, and enjoys the filthy beaches of Ostia. Will the hostile environment pave a way to jealousy?

After a stagecoach is robbed and the passengers murdered, a long and tangled series of surprise attacks and murderous double-crosses, leaves the coach's strongbox in the hands of the killer Lasky. It is up to the legendary hero Sartana to track down the missing money and determine just who is ultimately behind the grisly robberies and killings.

Gerardo, an aspiring actor, trying unsuccessfully to cross over from comedy to tragedy, is involved, due to his ability to mimic dialects of Italy, in a scam concocted by Lallo against a rich cloth-merchant.

To save his crumbling and rapidly-depopulating rural town, its mayor fakes a gruesome murder to attract media attention. His plan initially succeeds, but soon the situation will spiral out of control.

The usual gang of robbers are hired by a thief from Milan to steal a suitcase full of money, but troubles will hinder the success of the operation.

When young and attractive Lina Stroppiani, a thief like the rest of her family, tries to steal the taxi of Paolo, together with two accomplices, she can't possibly know that this will have far reaching consequences.

From childhood to fatherhood, Piero learns things the hard way while growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Livorno.

The famous Italian football coach Oronzo Canà has retired to a villa in Apulia. Now, old and tired, he is enjoying a quiet life there, cultivating his vineyard, when suddenly he is summoned to Milan, in northern Italy. There the elderly chairman of a great Lombard ("Longobarda") club is suffering from dementia and has lost his powers of judgement, and the club's manager has been fired. He has decided to bring back Oronzo Canà as trainer, remembering him from his great football team of thirty years before, tasking him with bringing the club back to its old winning ways. Oronzo puts his trust in the intervention of a Russian billionaire who has bought the club for promotion. But it is a deception.

Mimmo is a construction worker who only wants to live in peace, but has to work as a debt collector for his uncle. Everything changes when he meets Tanya, a beautiful, street-smart girl who shares his dream.

Vanni and Linda live in a penthouse apartment for rent in the center of Rome. Vanni writes novels, Linda 'cooperates' to his novels. Between a vernissage and an exhibition of Basquiat, thay hang out Alfredo and Constanza, a couple on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Alfredo is a surgeon with the habit of waking up early and has a lover, Constanza is a dermatologist with the same habits. With the intent to vent their frustrations in their friends' living room, Alfredo and Constanza take hostage the couple and recriminate loudly about the past and the present. In an impossible attempt to contain them, Vanni and Linda eventually take the field and also thrash each other. Someone will end up getting hurt by the end of the night.

Giorgio and Tito, father and son. A successful journalist and a lazy teenager apparently impossible to understand. Giorgio's dream is to take Tito to the Nasca Hill in Liguria, but Tito prefers to spend his entire day with his group of friends, eating, talking about nothing and playing video games. Until one day when he suddenly informs his father that he would join him in this trip. After a series of accidents and misunderstandings, at the end, somehow father and son will find the way to communicate … or at least they will try.

Paolo is a sceptical 30-year-old who works unwillingly as a sales clerk in a Turin department store. Mia is a back-up singer in a band and lives her life haphazardly, which leads her to being practically homeless. One night, they bump into each other by chance, in a gay club in Turin. It will be the beginning of an emotional adventure and a journey across the country looking for the father of Mia’s baby.

Recently cuckolded and reeling from a messy divorce, a hapless former singer hits the road - and the bar - with his all-too-helpful best bud, in this hilarious romantic comedy.

