The Band of Honest MenMovies like The Band of Honest Men
- Key Features:
- Crime comedy, Italian cinema, Counterfeiting, Get-rich-quick scheme, Family conflict, Social satire, Early 20th century, Working class, Underdog, Unexpected consequences, Nudity-minor
- Tone:
- humorous, satirical, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Comedy fans, Italian cinema enthusiasts, Underdog stories, Social satire appreciators
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Excitement → Anxiety → Disillusionment']
The Band of Honest Men

Italy, mid '60s. Three guys from a poor neighbourhood try to get rich by printing fake money using the fact that one of them works as a typographer. The story unravels around their embarrassed efforts to spend the money, their little family issues and ends with a surprise.
The Band of Honest Men
Best friends Peppe and Mario are thieves, but they're not very good at it. Still, Peppe thinks that he's finally devised a master heist that will make them rich. With the help of some fellow criminals, he plans to dig a tunnel from a rented apartment to the pawnshop next door, where they can rob the safe. But his plan is far from foolproof, and the fact that no one in the group has any experience digging tunnels proves to be the least of their problems.

A group of rogues steal a scroll granting its bearer the property of the land of Aurocastro in Apulia, a province in the south of Italy. They elect a shaggy knight, Brancaleone from Norcia, as their leader, and decide to get possession of this supposedly wealthy land. Many adventures will occurr during the journey.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lino lives in Turin with the family of his sister. He doesn't have a good job and never enough money. But in a day his life changes: he wins 1 billion dollars in a lottery and... everyone becomes a friend, the girl who he liked becomes his girlfriend and his sister begins to love him. He leaves Turin with his friend Parola and, in a casino, he loses all money! But luck returns...

After saving an infant of royal blood, knight Brancaleone forms a new army and sets out to return the baby to his father: a prince fighting in the Crusades.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Estranged, quarreling brothers Carezza and Sorriso have to put aside their differences to reclaim their father's beloved dune buggy from predatory real estate developer Torsillo, with the help of beautiful circus performer Miriam, whose family business is threatened by Torsillo's enforcers.

On Christmas Eve, three friends dressed as Santa Claus are arrested in what looks like an attempted burglary and charged with being the infamous "Santa Claus Gang". While trying to prove their innocence to the police, the trio explains why they found themselves in such a strange situation...

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

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.

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.

Baron Zazà, always broke due his dissolute lifestyle, decides to con a hefty sum of money out of his wealthy but greedy brother.

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.

Greedy Baron Antonio Peletti refuses to give to his town the heredity left by his father, a box full of precious jewels, which he keeps for himself. The major and the rest of the townspeople therefore organize a trick at his expense: they'll make him believe he is dead, and, in a fake "afterlife", they'll try to convince him to finally show them where the money is hidden to save his soul.

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'

Aging small-time conman Augusto works with two younger men: Roberto, who desires to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Carlo, nicknamed Picasso. Through a series of mishaps and personal entanglements, things go badly for Augusto.

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.

Willy, Giacomo, Lorenzo and Sandro are 4 young yuppies rampant in the "Milano da bere" of the 80s, who live in the myth of Lawyer Gianni Agnelli and Silvio Berlusconi; their only purpose in life is to appear rather than be. Giacomo is an advertiser, Lorenzo is a notary, Sandro is a dentist, and Willy is a car salesman.

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!

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

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...

Antonio, a former variety actor, keeps his daughter in an excellent boarding school by organizing small scams with his friend and colleague Felice. Commissioner Malvasia good-naturedly persecuted him. When their respective unsuspecting children fall in love, the two fathers make peace.

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.

A businessman in Italy, who doesn't pay any taxes, and a financier always on the hunt for tax evaders come into contact because their sons share an apartment in Paris.

Harry Valentini and Moe Dickstein are both errand boys for the Mob. When they lose $250,000, they are set up to kill each other. But they run off to Atlantic City and comedy follows.

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

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

Nello and Rufetto are life long friends, and also a team of criminals who dream to make the big shot and set themselves for live, being punished with bad luck.

Mirko and Manolo are best friends and live in the suburbs of Rome. They both live in poor conditions with their single parents, are still in school and struggle with occasional odd jobs to make ends meet. Together they share dreams of women, of sex and money, of a better life to come. Then, after killing a man in a hit-and-run one night, they get involved with the local mafia and their lives change dramatically.

Frenetic in its pacing and with miniscule character development, this trite slapstick farce stars three Italian comics - Paolo Villaggio, Lino Banfi, and Massimo Boldi as the idiot-nephews of a wealthy invalid (Enrico Maria Salerno). The uncle's plan is to teach the trio how to successfully steal for a living but the plan does not have a chance against their exaggerated ineptitude.

On New Year's Eve, a young woman and an out-of-work actor complicate a pickpocket's plans to ply his trade.

Fred works for a company that creates alibis for cheaters until Clio, the daughter of one of his client, falls in love with him.

"Le Dabe" retired many years ago and now he lives in the Tropics where he owns stables and horses. He is a very rich man. He was the king of all money counterfeiters. He is contacted from Paris to organize a new job. He says no. But when he finds out the the currency that should be counterfeited is the Dutch florin, he accepts immediately. He retired after having counterfeited 100 florin notes just before the Queen Wilhelmina retired them from circulation. He flies to Paris. But the gang is not to be trusted, at least not all of them.

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

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?

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 deranged prison warden with a nasty habit of killing escapees forces the boyfriends of his teenage twin daughters into a shotgun wedding, after they claim to be pregnant. All hope seems lost, until the husbands hatch a madcap plan to rob a money train to freedom.

In order to make his little sick brother's dream come true, Leo and his best mates organize a fake score...but on the d day, they make a mistake and the fake score becomes a real hold up.Here starts the extraordinary adventure of PUBLIC Amis.

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.

After losing their respective nest eggs thanks to a bumbling bank employee, three men use him to plot a bold and batty heist to get their money back.

An attempted robbery turns to be an unexpected recruitment when two unemployed men mistakenly break into a police office instead of a store.

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.

In the barracks of the "Settecamini" fire brigade in Rome, the shabby Squadra 17 tackles missions with resounding failures, waiting in vain for a chance for redemption.

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.

Roman TV technicians Fabio and Enzo have been unable to find decent jobs. They decide to crack a safe at a jewelry in Milan. To get the layout of the store, they enlist a beautiful but unsophisticated young woman, Deborah. To find underground access to the store, they get help from a sewage worker. An obese trapeze artist is called for disarm the store alarms. The clever Mrs. Motta, old hotelier, is also involved. Will they succeed?

Belle Duke, in order to get revenge on her former lover Philip Bang, organize his jail break. But instead of Philip is the Italian Felice Brianza, AKAS Felix, to escape. Now Felix is obliged to help Philip to escape. He will succeeded and from that moment on the two will join to defraud Belle. The swindle plot become more complicate when Felix falls in love for Philip's daughter.

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).

Five down-on-their luck strangers meet by chance while looking at a property in the country none of them are able to afford. They decide to join forces and risk everything to turn it into a B&B, only for the local mafia to show up demanding their "fair" share.

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

Drowning in debt, two brothers concoct a plan to scam a wealthy heiress and save their home in Naples — but unexpected love soon complicates the scheme.

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.

David loses his white collar job, his fiancée and his house after one night with con man Marcello. He tracks him down to exact revenge, but ends up becoming his disciple in order to win back everything.

In the first Italian film to be shot in color, Totò portrays a musician named Antonio Scannagatti who strongly hopes to sell his composition, "Epopea italiana", to Tiscordi, who is one of the most important Italian impresarios.

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.

A group of desperate men, unsatisfied by their lives, decides to attempt a heist to a postal armored truck guard.

The "Tucci" are a poor Italian family living in a small village in Lazio. Father, mother, a conceited daughter and a genius son, forced to pretend being stupid to keep up with the family. One day something unexpected happens: the family wins one hundred million Euros. Excited, they decide to keep the winning a secret, but as soon as a single word slips out from the mouth of the householder, they only have one choice to avoid being persecuted by friends and acquaintances: run away. They leave at night, heading to Milan. They will realize as soon as they arrive that today's rich people behaves very differently from the past, and being rich has become a real bother... this discovery will make things way different from what Tuccis' expected.

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.

Mr. Pezzella owns and operates a well-established luxury-clothing store. He does not like and does not consider it right to pay taxes and therefore uses a tax consultant to be able to evade more taxes.

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

In the present day, three friends to make ends meet invent a "criminal tour" for the places which were scenes of the Banda della Magliana criminal acts, even with vintage clothes. Suddenly they are catapulted in the 1982, during the Spain World Cup, facing the real Banda della Magliana, which at that time had the control over illegal bets.

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.

Charlie's got a 'job' to do. Having just left prison he finds one of his friends has attempted a high-risk job in Torino, Italy, right under the nose of the mafia. Charlie's friend doesn't get very far, so Charlie takes over the 'job'. Using three Mini Coopers, a couple of Jaguars, and a bus, he hopes to bring Torino to a standstill, steal a fortune in gold and escape in the chaos.

Benito Fornaciari, a pale, devoutly Catholic, Upper Middleclass Italian inherits a minor-league football club from a long-lost uncle. He decides to visit the club to sell it, but the local population has other ideas: through an almost-armed uprising they "force" him not to sell the club but lead it to other glories on the football field.

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

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.

Assola is an imaginary village on the border between Italy and France and the borderline crosses the village itself. The French customs agent Ferdinand is always trying to catch the Italian smuggler Giuseppe. Giuseppe discovers that Ferdinand was actually born in Italy and therefore he can't be a French customs agent.

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.

When they realize the times are changing, five crooks decide to switch from bank robberies to personality abductions.

Two mismatched buddies are mistaken for mob enforcers in Depression-era America.

Dino craft practice tattoos, Bruna is a beautician; their studies are facing each other. They learn of a mysterious treasure hidden in a chair that belonged to a woman now dead.

Angelo "Snaps" Provolone made his dying father a promise on his deathbed: he would leave the world of crime and become an honest businessman. Despite having no experience in making money in a legal fashion, Snaps sets about to keep his promise.

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

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.

A pair of Americans want to perform the greatest robbery: the treasure of San Gennaro, in Napoli.

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.

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.

The Gestapo forces con man Victorio Bardone to impersonate a dead partisan general in order to extract information from his fellow inmates.

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

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

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".

When a judge shuts down a high profile cheese factory for violating pollution standards, the owner bribes a monsignor to fix the problem. After they discover the judge has a predilection for married women, the owner employs a prostitute to pose as his wife in an attempt to seduce the judge.

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.

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

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

Pasquale takes all of his 12 children and runs away from Monza, looking for a house of a wealthy and generous awning. Having met on the way impoverished peasant, Pasquale takes him also, having granted the rank of "Half-Monk" and thus having gained rustic, but a reliable friend.

