Hands Over the CityMovies like Hands Over the City
- Key Features:
- Political corruption, Real estate development, Scandal, Political intrigue, Social commentary, Urban environment, Power dynamics, Italian cinema, Moral decay
- Tone:
- serious, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Political drama enthusiasts, Those interested in social commentary, Fans of Italian cinema
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Disgust
Hands Over the City

Prior to a city council election, the collapse of a building leaves a land developer and his political backers defending themselves against a scandal.
Hands Over the City
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.

Antonio Barracano is a respected figure among the Neapolitan underworld, keeping order and administering justice according to his own criteria, beyond the law. One day he's faced with a dilemma after a youth asks him permission to kill his father.

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.

The destinies of two families are irrevocably tied together after a cyclist is hit off the road by a jeep in the night before Christmas Eve.

Set during a retreat of Christian Democrat politicians who practice spiritual exercises together, it is an allegory of corrupted power. Disturbing, claustrophobic settings are the background to a series of mysterious crimes.

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 accidental shooting of a boy in New York City leads to an investigation by the Deputy Mayor, and unexpectedly far-reaching consequences.

Internationally released Director's Cut of "Loro 1" and "Loro 2", which were released separately as two movies in Italy. The film talks about the group of businessmen and politicians – the Loro (Them) from the title – who live and act near to media tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi in the years between 2006 and 2009.

The lives of the tenants of a lower-class apartment building in the outskirts intersect on a backdrop of crime, drug dealing, confused feelings and tainted relationships, in a lucid portrait of contemporary Rome. Marcello, a bisexual former body builder married with Chiara, has an affair with the bourgeois professor Walter; the ambitious Mauro and cold-blooded dealer and his wife Simona get involved in the ambiguous business of the local boss Carmine to move up to the elegant and cruel circles of central Rome that profit from the public funds for the disadvantaged; Valeria and her son Attilio, Flaminia and her violent husband Bruno face the daily difficulties of their troubled lives. The corrupted powers of urban speculation invade a suspended corner of the suburbs, contaminating the lives of a group of lost souls,revealing the desperate world of the slum and the pitiless scene of the city center as the hidden face of the same coin.

Young men with no future have little in the present as well. Natale is released from prison: he takes up with his friends again but none can find work. Claudio, from Palermo, gets out of juvenile detention in Naples and he's met by Vita, a girl who's come from home to run away with him. Where can they go? A young dad, whose potato stall at the market is shut down because he has no permit, takes his two small children to the beach and yells at them. Mario, gay, a prostitute in drag, gets a visit from his mom; he offers tea, then finds the water to his apartment is shut off. Social workers drop by, parole officers file reports. What hope is there? What options besides crime?

An obscure Italian magistrate suspects that a well-known industrialist commited murder, and decides to investigate him, and bring him to court, whatever it takes. But - will the magistrate have it in him to go against impossible odds, in the name of the Italian people he represents?

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.

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

Two men, both named Antonio Pisapia, see their lives go downhill in 1980s Naples. One is a crooner embroiled in a sex scandal; the other is a football player whose career is cut short by an injury.

New York cop Frank Serpico blows the whistle on the rampant corruption in the force only to have his comrades turn against him.

In Rome it hasn’t rained for three years and the lack of water is overturning rules and habits. Through the city dying of thirst and prohibitions moves a chorus of people, young and old, marginalised and successful, victims and profiteers. Their lives are linked in a single design, while each seeks his or her deliverance.

Demetrio Perez is a tough prosecutor torn between the corruption inherent in his job and the desire to do right by his family. But when opportunity presents itself and his daughter Thea falls in love with a Mafioso’s son, Perez has to cut through the morality of his law-abiding roots and become as dirty as the dangerous criminals he represents.

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.

Days before the general election, after a girl from a rich family is murdered in an attempted rape, the editor-in-chief of a conservative tabloid tries to derail the police investigation in order to help the right-wing candidates supported by his bosses.

This film tells the story of three defeats: Berlusconi’s political and human defeat in his “twilight”, the one of Ciccio Mirra, Berlusconi’s unconditional supporter, deeply rooted in an ancient culture that dies hard, and the director’s artistic defeat in an Italy that recognised itself in this “Berlusconian culture” for a long time, and probably still does.

Ruthless businessman Luciano reconnects with his estranged family from a previous marriage, only to use their youngest son, awkward and starry-eyed Baldo, as the fall guy for his failing endeavor.

On his deathbed, a powerful Mafia boss names his estranged son heir to his criminal empire: however, his men discover too late that the son at issue is an idiotic manchild.

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

A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiralling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.

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

In 1980s Naples, Italy, an awkward Italian teen struggling to find his place experiences heartbreak and liberation after he's inadvertently saved from a freak accident by football legend Diego Maradona.

Italy, early '90s. Calm, clever and inscrutable, politician Giulio Andreotti has been synonymous with power for decades. He has survived everything: electoral battles, terrorist massacres, loss of friends, slanderous accusations; but now certain repentant mobsters implicate him in the crimes of Cosa Nostra.

Set in Sicily, this violent crime drama tells the tale of an Italian cop who heads to a small island town to look into the death of a construction supplier. Once there he is shocked by the influence the Mafia has over the people and even himself.

The king of a secret modern-time Medieval kingdom leaves his throne in inheritance to his son, who struggles to lead the kingdom in fight for its independence from the Italian state.

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.

A climax of brutality and violence after a young man hits some cars in a rush.

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.

Follows the lives of three families who live in a three-story building in a Roman neighbourhood.

After the India of Varanasi’s boatmen, the American desert of the dropouts, and the Mexico of the killers of drugtrade, Gianfranco Rosi has decided to tell the tale of a part of his own country, roaming and filming for over two years in a minivan on Rome’s giant ring road—the Grande Raccordo Anulare, or GRA—to discover the invisible worlds and possible futures harbored in this area of constant turmoil. Elusive characters and fleeting apparitions emerge from the background of the winding zone: a nobleman from the Piemonte region and his college student daughter sharing a one-room efficiency in a modern apartment building along the GRA.

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

Claudio is a construction worker living in the outskirts of Rome. He's happily married and his wife is pregnant with their third child. However, a dramatic event comes to upset this simple and happy life.

A gangster known as "Samurai" wants to turn the waterfront of Rome into a new Las Vegas. All the local mob bosses have agreed to work for this common goal. But peace is not to last long.

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.

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.

Tangled up with blackmail and crooked cops, the son of a former gangster seeks out his father's old friends, who risk everything to save him.

An inside look at Italy's modern-day crime families, the Camorra in Naples and Caserta. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano. Power, money and blood: these are the "values" that the residents of the Province of Naples and Caserta have to face every day. They hardly ever have a choice and are forced to obey the rules of the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life.

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.

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

Enrico is a corporate man whose job is to manipulate inexperienced scions into selling their flailing companies. His latest assignment proves more difficult than anticipated—since his target are two young siblings whose parents just died in a car accident.

25-year-old philosophy major Marta faces the ugly truth for many young Italians — a complete lack of career opportunities. While babysitting for single mother Sonia, she starts to work as a telemarketer, experiencing first-hand the fanatical and exploitative rat-race culture pushed on employees while quickly rising through the ranks of the company. Around her revolve people like delusional supervisor Daniela, her womanizing boss Claudio, fragile coworker Lucio "2", and well-meaning but inconsistent union rep Giorgio.

Eight Italian politicians from the communist party gather on a terrace in Rome for a get-together. They discuss about their past, present and future.

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

What are we talking about when we talk about negotiations? About the state's concessions to the Mafia in exchange for ending the massacres? About who assassinated Falcone and Borsellino? Of the eternal coexistence between the Mafia and politics? Between the mafia and the church? Between the Mafia and law enforcement? Or is there more? A group of actors enacts the most relevant episodes of the affair known as the Mafia-state negotiation, impersonating mobsters, secret service agents, high officials, magistrates, victims and murderers, Freemasons, honest and courageous people, and courageous people up to a point. Thus one of the most intricate events in our history becomes an exciting tale.

A look at the controversial riot cops unit, told through the stories of three veteran cops and a young recruit.

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.

Enrico Mattei helped change Italy’s future, first as freedom-fighter against the Nazis, then as an investor in methane gas through a public company, A.G.I.P., and ultimately as the head of ENI, a state body formed for the development of oil resources. On October 27, 1962, he died when his private airplane crashed during a flight to Milan. Officially, it is declared an accident, but many journalists explore other plausible reasons for Mattei's untimely death.

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.

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.

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

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

A gang of teenage boys stalk the streets of Naples armed with hand guns and AK-47s to do their mob bosses' bidding – until they decide to be the bosses themselves.

In a small suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque façade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.

Magistrate Jeanne Charmant-Killman doggedly investigates CEO Michel Humeau, who is accused of participating in massive corporate malfeasance. As her investigation leads her into the upper echelons of government, Jeanne becomes intoxicated by the power she is amassing.

Energetic priest Don Camillo returns to the town of Brescello for more political and personal duels with Communist mayor Peppone.

Police detective Paolo Germi and the mysterious Marisa meet each other at a dance hall. Germi is unsuspecting of the secret Marisa is carrying with her: adverse conditions forced her into prostitution. As Germi finds the young girl brutally murdered, he decides to go after her killers. During his investigation, he enters a world of intrigue and obfuscation that leave an endless trail of blood.

Massimo Sisti is a reputable professional with a nice house, a happy marriage, and two loving daughters, whose life is turned upside down when one day he finds a little girl tied up in his basement.

"Loro", in two parts, is a period movie that chronicles, as a fiction story, events likely happened in Italy (or even made up) between 2006 and 2010. "Loro" wants to suggest in portraits and glimps, through a composite constellation of characters, a moment in history, now definitively ended, which can be described in a very summary picture of the events as amoral, decadent but extraordinarily alive. Additionally, "Loro" wishes to tell the story of some Italians, fresh and ancient people at the same time: souls from a modern imaginary Purgatory who, moved by heterogeneous intents like ambition, admiration, affection, curiosity, personal interests, establish to try and orbit around the walking Paradise that is the man named Silvio Berlusconi.

Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano's bullet-riddled corpse is found facedown in a courtyard in Castelvetrano, a handgun and rifle by his side. Local and international press descend upon the scene, hoping to crack open the true story behind the death of this young man, who, at the age of twenty-seven, had already become Italy’s most wanted criminal and celebrated hero.

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.

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.

Caught in the crosshairs of police corruption and Marseille’s warring gangs, a loyal cop must protect his squad by taking matters into his own hands.

A tough, violent cop who doesn't mind bending the law goes after a machine-gun-carrying, hunchbacked psychotic killer.

In post-apocalyptic New York City a policeman infiltrates the Bronx which has become a battleground for several murderous street gangs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A prizefighter-turned-longshoreman with a conscience goes up against labor leaders to expose corruption, extortion, and murder among the union ranks.

During the bombing of Naples in World War II, a cynical businessman helps a naive prostitute, who spends the next two decades desperate to have him reciprocate her feelings.

A local activist and a budding young mayor clash over the best path forward for their impoverished suburb.

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

An episodic satire of the political and social status of Italy in the seventies, through the shows of one day of a television channel.

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.

New York City factory worker Eddie Marino is a solid citizen and regular guy, until the day a sadistic street gang brutally assaults his wife and murders his child. When a corrupt judge sets the thugs free, he goes berserk and vows revenge.

Antonio, an honest citizen, seeks his revenge against Simone, a dishonest politician. Antonio initially wanted to report him but then, knowing Italy, a country in which the justice process is very long and uncertain, he decides to take revenge in another way: he discovers that his enemy has hidden the proceeds of his misdeeds in a Swiss bank and decides to organize a hit to get back what was stolen from him. To accomplish the feat, Antonio sets up a small gang, made up of non-professionals who have only one thing in common: they too have been defrauded by corrupt politics. The heist takes place in Zurich where the bank in which Simone hid the money is based. With a series of unpredictable consequences, and with a funny substitution of people (Antonio and his wife pretend to be Simone and his partner), a comic clockwork mechanism starts. And the heist begins.

Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment.

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

Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.

The increasingly politicised Emanuelle gets deeper into fighting an international trade composed of sex, violence and high profile players.

Back from the hospital where he has been treated after a heart attack, Lorenzo is on his way upstairs to his top-floor apartment in Naples when he meets Michela. The charming young woman, who has just moved to the facing apartment, has forgotten her keys and finds herself locked out. Cynical and grumpy, the retired lawyer who has been living estranged from the rest of the world, should normally leave her to her fate but he mellows under her spontaneous charm. He helps her, becomes friends not only with her but with her husband Fabio and their two children. For once, the self-declared misanthropist seems to be experiencing the long forgotten feeling of empathy.

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?

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.

Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life.

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.

A slacker who does his best to avoid confrontation strikes up an unlikely friendship with a dangerous thug who suddenly forces his way into his life.

Back to his hometown, a former marshal finds his house occupied by a young woman working as a fishwife.

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.

Rocky Giraldi, son of police officer Nico, followed in his father's footsteps and is now an agent in the police force's operational departments. He is currently working on a seemingly straightforward case: the murder of a burglar. In reality, behind the crime lies a dangerous network of drug dealers involved in money laundering, which also includes an important law enforcement official whom the man knows well.






