Il bell'AntonioMovies like Il bell'Antonio
- Key Features:
- Marital problems, Social stigma, Family expectations, Reputation, Small town, Cultural expectations, Italy, 1960s
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Arthouse cinema fans, Viewers interested in social commentary
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Discomfort
Il bell'Antonio

Problems arise for Antonio Magnano when he is unable to consummate his marriage to the beautiful Barbara Puglisi and his virility is called into question. Despite the fact that he loves his beautiful wife and they have otherwise been happily married for a year, his problem becomes a source of contention for all concerned.
Il bell'Antonio
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.

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.

In an industrializing Italian town, a married woman, rendered mentally unstable after a traffic accident, drifts into an affair with a friend of her husband.

Art professor Nino Rolfe attempts to break down his wife Teresa's conventional modesty. Noticing her affection for their daughter's fiancé, Nino instigates her sexual interest in him - setting off a chain of unexpected events and emotional complications...

Naples, early 1980s. The strained marriage between Aldo and Vanda is fractured one evening when Aldo admits, unprompted, his infidelity. Equally hurt and bewildered, Vanda attempts to hide her pain from the couple's two school-age kids, lest they discover that their cramped apartment is not a home of trust and love. 30 years later, Aldo and Vanda are still tied together, but their relationship with each other and their children continues to be defined by what happened all those years ago.

Antonio married Amalia and went to fight in Russia during World War II. Since he didn't return Amalia thought he was dead, so she married another man. Many year after the war end, Antonio returned. Amalia has to choose between two husbands.

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.

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...

A wealthy, possessive husband's investigation reignites his young wife's past love, leading them to plot against him. As obstacles fall away, their passion faces a new test.

During WWII, a teenage boy discovering himself becomes love-stricken by Malèna, a sensual woman living in a small, narrow-minded Italian town.

An anthology film that presents three storylines, all set in the Italian town of Treviso. In the first story, a husband pretends to be impotent as a cover for having an affair. In the second, a bank clerk abandons his wife for his mistress, but the rest of the town's husbands become jealous and unite to conspire against them. In the third, men of the town all seduce a promiscuous teenager, but her father eventually reveals that she is underage, and they face prosecution for statutory rape.

The troubled relationship between Gianni and Nino, set in the narrow-minded and prejudicial Sicily of 1982.

A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.

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.

Antonio and Peppino live in a small town in central Italy: Peppino is the barber, Totò is maintained by the rich but avaricious wife Teresa.

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.

Four married couples find out their marriage is invalid because it was officiated by a fraudulent priest and have to decide what to do next.

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?

A couple is desperately looking to conceive a child and moves to Spain to get the help of a renowned doctor. Their plans change after they meet an apparently perfect girl that volunteers to carry on the pregnancy in their place.

Giulio suddenly finds himself having to change his life when his wife, after discovering his betrayal, asks for a separation and, suddenly, the reality around him is no longer the same. Forty years old and father of two children, Giulio is forced by circumstances to say goodbye to family and economic well-being and to study new solutions in order to stay afloat and not drown in a new poverty made of double rents and double bills to pay, solitary lunches in fourth-rate restaurants, children's wishes not to be ignored and creditors to hide from.

After years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.

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

Mariano has been married for 10 years with Miranda, a woman way out of his league. Their small-town life is disrupted by womanizing photographer Andrea, who — struck by her good looks — offers Miranda a one-time modelling job. Albeit hesitant, the couple eventually accepts his invitation to the Seychelles...

Pier Paolo Pasolini sets out to interview Italians about sex, apparently their least favorite thing to talk about in public: he asks children if they know where babies come from; asks old and young women if they support gender equality; asks both sexes if a woman's virginity still matters, what do they think of homosexuality, if divorce should be legal, or if they support the recent abolition of brothels. He interviews blue-collar workers, intellectuals, college students, rural farmers, the bourgeoisie, and every other kind of people, painting a vivid portrait of a rapidly-industrializing Italy, hanging between modernity and tradition — toward both of which Pasolini shows equal distrust.

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.

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.

Andrea Artusi is a successful businessman with a beautiful wife, Maria, and a happy marriage - until he has an affair. After his own cheating, he starts to become obsessed with his wife's fidelity. Since she is one of the most desired women in town, he worries that it would be very easy for her to cheat on him. Now every time a man looks at his wife, Andrea goes crazy. Meanwhile, Maria finds out about her husband's affair and decides to plan her revenge.

Paolo is an outgoing and handsome real estate broker married to Simona, a beautiful woman from the rough outskirts of Rome who has become an author of spicy bestsellers and is pregnant with their child. Betta, Paolo’s sister and her husband Sandro organise a dinner party with Paolo, Simona and their childhood friend, the eccentric musician Claudio. During the lively gathering Paolo reveals what he would like to name his son, causing reactions to steam up and a torrent of revelations to follow reaching climactic proportions.

35-year-old Alice has a husband and a son. Her life seems a beautiful dream, but it soon turns out to be a nightmare. Her husband dies in a car accident and her lawyer tells her that she is on her uppers. The only way she has to earn money in a short time is by resorting to the oldest job in history.

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.

Two teenage friends conspire to find out how much their youthful sensuality can disrupt one of their households, headed by a dentist and his mentally-ill wife.

Giovanni and Raffaella are happily married from ten years, but their relationship goes into crisis when Raffaella falls in love with Valerio Mantovani, a handsome forty-year-old man she knew during the concerts of chamber music she weekly attends with her mother.

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.

After the end of WWII, a young Lithuanian woman and a young Italian man from Stromboli impulsively marry, but married life on the island is more demanding than she can accept.

Alina is a brilliant and enterprising woman who runs a successful art gallery in Palermo. Her husband Daniele, a successful orchestra conductor, cultured and intelligent, is not a regular presence. One day, while accompanying Daniele to the airport, Alina feels a sense of emptiness. She will try to fill it with a butcher who is always joking and full of erotic allusions and who arouses a strong attraction in her.

Set in Italy during the 1920s, a barber is in a wheelchair because of a psychosomatic illness after he lost the woman he loves.

Roberto is a doctor in a small town near Naples. He suffers from a severe heart disease and he is heading toward an American hospital for a dangerous surgery with little or no hope of surviving. Therefore he talks to his best friend since childhood, Michele, a columnist at the local newspaper, explaining his last and long-wanted desire: having sex once with his Swedish beautiful wife, Frida.

Emma has left Russia to live with her husband in Italy. Now a member of a powerful industrial family, she is the respected mother of three, but feels unfulfilled. One day, Antonio, a talented chef and her son's friend, makes her senses kindle.

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.

Tommaso meets Stefania. They like each other, they fall in love, they get married. A child is also born. It all started very well, it evolved well, then discreetly, little by little until the crisis. It seemed impossible, yet the love, which seemed really solid, perhaps fell apart, even turning into hatred. Who knows if there is still time to do so. Volo, ex Jena, tries to be a real actor. An appeal test is required.

A couple receives an indecent proposal from their younger, more daring neighbors.

Barcelona, Spain, in the late sixties. Eugenio, a young jeweler who has fallen in love with Conchita, a singer, to the point of learning to play the guitar to accompany her in her performances, will first have to learn to overcome his stage fright.

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.

A 16-year-old Sicilian becomes the target of a mafia hit man after refusing to go through with her prearranged marriage.

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.

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.

Couple Andrea and Giulia, an outwardly successful couple, are having problems in the bedroom. When Giulia invites Max, an old friend from high school, to stay in the family home with their teenage son, some new attitudes begin to form.

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.

The tale of an individualist proletarian in a time marked by the rise of mass political movements. In early 20th-century Italy, illiterate sailor Martin Eden seeks fame as a writer while torn between the love of a bourgeois girl and allegiance to his social class.

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.

While touring in Italy, a recently-widowed American opera singer has an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old son to help him overcome his heroin addiction.

In 1950s northern Italy, a woman tests her fiancé's love and passion by trying to break his commitment to premarital chastity.

In 1950s Ferrara, a lonely innkeeper explores a series of relationships while awaiting her missing husband’s return from war.

Irene Wagner, the wife of the prominent German scientist Professor Albert Wagner, had been having an affair with Erich Baumann. She does not disclose this to her husband, hoping to preserve his innocence and their "perfect marriage". This fills her with anxiety and guilt. However, Johanna Schultze, Erich's jealous ex-girlfriend, learns about the affair and begins to blackmail Irene, turning Irene's psychological torture into a harsh reality.

A priest helps the small town he's stationed in to resolve conflicts by working together.

When an Italian man comes out of the closet, it affects both his life and his crazy family.

Film director Blasetti is looking for a little girl for his new movie. Along with other mothers, Maddelena takes her daughter to Cinecittà, hoping she’ll be selected and become a star. She is ready to sacrifice anything for little Maria.

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.

Marty, a butcher who lives in the Bronx with his mother is unmarried at 34. Good-natured but socially awkward he faces constant badgering from family and friends to get married but has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. Marty meets Clara, an unattractive school teacher, realising their emotional connection, he promises to call but family and friends try to convince him not to.

Roman and Hanka have a loving marriage, but his impotence has led to her having an affair. The unbearable situation drives Roman to extreme measures both physically and mentally, testing their love and his own will to live.

Forty-something Mattia has every woman in town lusting after him. But every time a woman wants to get hitched, he drags out his 'daughter' (actually the girl next door) to pass judgment on this woman.

The story of a loving couple who struggles to keep its relationship alive against the inescapable passing of time, told in a nonlinear way over the course of ten years in their lives.

A sugar-refinery worker flees his Northern Italy town after a woman refuses his marriage proposal.

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?

Antonio, a former shipyard worker, leads a mild and peaceful life: he plays bowls with friends, takes care of his elderly mother, has an ex-wife with whom he is on excellent terms and Emilia, his only and beloved daughter When Emilia announces to him one day that she has decided to get married, Antonio is filled with joy, he can finally fulfill his dream by giving her the reception they have always dreamed of together being able to count on the savings of a lifetime.However, the bank of which he has always been a client seems to be hiding something, the employees are suddenly elusive and the director inexplicably changes constantly.The task of paying for his daughter's wedding will prove increasingly difficult and Antonio will discover, against his will, that those who keep our treasures don't always keep our dreams as well.

Alessandro and Arturo have been together for over 15 years and, despite the feeling they still have for each other, their relationship is now at crisis. When Alessandro’s best friend, out of the blue, asks them to take care of her two kids for a few days, something changes in their daily routine and love will drive them to a crazy and unexpected turn in their life.

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.

Geremia, an aging tailor/money lender, is a repulsive, mean, stingy man who lives alone in his shabby house with his scornful, bedridden mother. He has a morbid, obsessive relationship with money and he uses it to insinuate himself into other people's affairs, pretending to be the "family friend". One day he is asked by a man to lend him money for the wedding of Rosalba, his daughter. Geremia falls in love at first sight with the bewitching creature and and soon indulges in a "beauty and the beast" relationship...

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.

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.

Five young men dream of success as they drift lazily through life in a small Italian village. Fausto, the group's leader, is a womanizer; Riccardo craves fame; Alberto is a hopeless dreamer; Moraldo fantasizes about life in the city; and Leopoldo is an aspiring playwright. As Fausto chases a string of women, to the horror of his pregnant wife, the other four blunder their way from one uneventful experience to the next.

Tommaso is an American expat film director living in Rome with his young wife and their daughter. Disoriented by his past misgivings and subsequent unexpected blows to his self-esteem, Tommaso wades through this late chapter of his life with an increasingly impaired grasp on reality as he prepares for his next film.

The film presents the tale of Agnese Ascalone, daughter of prominent miner Vincenzo Ascalone, and takes place in a small town in Sicily. Agnese is seduced by her sister Matilde's fiancé, and has a tryst with him for which she confesses and tries to repent, only to be discovered by her mother and father.

Michele Casali is a middle-class professor in Fascist Italy who teaches at the same high school attended by his only daughter, Giovanna. A shy and sensitive girl, her insecurities are only magnified by Michele's overprotectiveness—reaching a point of no return.

Three families go into crisis when their daughters get engaged because they are convinced that their young daughters have all chosen a wrong partner.

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 young priest Father Giulio returns to Rome, his hometown, after a long pilgrimage. Don Giulio hopes to live peacefully with his family and his friends, but discovers that many of them are depressed or frustrated, and some suicidal.

Tullio Hermil is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress to his wife, but when he believes she has been unfaithful he becomes enamored of her again.

After receiving a large sum of money on his bank account by mistake, a small-town thirtysomething dissatisfied with his life sees the opportunity of turning back the clock to when things were good, reliving the carefree life of an university student in a big city. Here, he falls in love with a girl and gets her pregnant. There's just one problem: he already has a wife and a daughter back home!

"The Family," an album with a velvet cover, is meant to touch the extended family of man. Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide the film's structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo couldn't really decide until it was too late.

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

In a large villa on Lake Como, everything is ready to celebrate Elio and Caterina's wedding. It will be the most beautiful day of their lives and also of their parents' lives, especially their respective fathers, Giacomo and Giovanni. Too bad that together with Margherita, Giovanni's ex-wife and mother of the bride, Aldo, her new partner, also arrives at the wedding. Friendly, outgoing and above all a total troublemaker. Giacomo and Giovanni try to contain him in every way, but under Aldo's blows, cracks open up from which a hidden malaise emerges, destined to call into question the friendship between Giovanni and Giacomo, their marriages and more. And that will force everyone to deal with their own doubts and with the courage it takes to allow themselves happiness.

When Antonia's husband Massimo is killed in a car accident, she accidentally discovers that he has been having a same-sex affair with a produce wholesaler named Michele.

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.

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.

During a dinner, a group of friends decide to share whatever message or phone call they will receive during the evening, with unforeseen consequences.

As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.

The amorous adventures of Andrea Rossi-Colombotti, an army officer who finds pleasure with beautiful women in life-threatening situations.

Two soccer stories: Alvaro Presutti is a referee who seems to be the last to know about his wife having an affair with a German soccer star. Amedeo Amedei has to please both his father, a die hard Roma supporter and his future father in law, who supports Lazio.

Anna and Piero fighting routine of a long marriage, when Piero loses his memory, Anna reconstructs his way. For its part, the concierge Rocco and his friend Michele play in a group that emulates the Beatles and face opposition from their partners. Finally, Marcello and Paola are a divorced couple who, from time to time, pretend they are still together to avoid problems. They are victims of a relentless war of sexes.

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).

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

When Jan decides to marry his girl-friend Sara, he is not aware of his opponent: her father, who is an Italian.

In this film about Ingmar Bergman's parents, Henrik Bergman is studying for the priesthood and trying to make ends meet when he encounters the lovely, affluent Anna. Despite their social differences, Henrik and Anna fall in love, wed and move to the country. They lead a quiet life as Henrik works as a priest, but it isn't long before the simple people and plain surroundings make Anna long for a more lavish lifestyle, which causes marital stress.

A middle-aged tailor and his wife find their relationship challenged by the arrival of a handsome new apprentice.

A retired professor of American origin lives a solitary life in a luxurious palazzo in Rome. He is confronted by a vulgar Italian marchesa and her lover, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, and forced to rent to them an apartment on the upper floor of his palazzo. From this point on his quiet routine is turned into chaos by his tenants' machinations, and everybody's life takes an unexpected but inevitable turn.

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 story of an encounter between a bourgeois man and a poor woman, because their teenage children fall in love.

Set in the small, mountainous village of Vermiglio during the waning days of WWII, a series of dramatic, consequential events unfold after the arrival of a taciturn Sicilian soldier, who hides out in town after deserting the army. While there, the soldier develops a romance with a provincial family’s eldest daughter.
