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Movies like The Hawks and the Sparrows

Key Features:
Allegory, Social commentary, Political commentary, Philosophical, Father-son relationship, Talking animal, Existentialism, Italian cinema, Black and white, Road movie, Poverty, Class conflict
Tone:
satirical, poetic, serious
Target Audience:
Art house enthusiasts, Fans of Italian cinema, Intellectual viewers, Viewers interested in social commentary
Emotional Arc:
Curiosity → Reflection → Disillusionment

The Hawks and the Sparrows

1966-05-04
The Hawks and the Sparrows Poster - Find Similar Movies

A man and his son take an allegorical stroll through life with a talking bird that spouts social and political philosophy.

Genres
Comedy, Fantasy
Cast
Totò, Ninetto Davoli, Femi Benussi, Umberto Bevilacqua, Renato Capogna, Alfredo Leggi, Renato Montalbano, Flaminia Siciliano, Lena Lin Solaro, Giovanni Tarallo
Crew
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Pier Paolo Pasolini
Rating
7.2(355 votes)
The Hawks and the SparrowsThe Hawks and the Sparrows
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The Rich, the Pauper and the Butler

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



Battle of the Classes
5.832

As everyone knows, children make no difference between social classes, skin colors or religions. But then why does Corentin, Paul and Sofia's nine-year-old son, only have friends like him at Bagnolet's school? And when his friends all leave for a private school in Paris, his parents are frightened. From now on, Corentin is the only one in his class. But the only what?



Ciao, Professore!
7.2

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



The Predators
6.7

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.



1900
1900(1976)
7.8

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



Ovosodo
Ovosodo(1997)
7.2

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



The Working Class Goes to Heaven

After losing a finger in a work accident, an Italian worker becomes increasingly involved in political and revolutionary groups.



A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.



Red Wood Pigeon
7.2

Michele is a Communist MP who loses his memory in a car crash—although nobody seems to notice. Over the course of a water polo match ahead of election day, he begins to remember his past life, revealing the picture of a man whose personal and political identity crisis mirrors the one of Italian communism.



Mamma Roma
7.9

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.



I Don't Know Much, But I'll Say Everything

Pierre Gastié-Leroy is the son of a wealthy director of a factory of weapon manufacturing. Despite his parents, two generous uncles and a bishop godfather who try to inculcate him the rigid values of his social level, Pierre is a dreamer, antimilitaristic, social educator who dreams of saving three thugs, his "little guys" at the limit of delinquency. After several resounding failures that sent him to prison, Pierre is ordered by his father to join his factory to direct the social service. Tired of the venality of his father and the foolishness of the "little guys", Pierre hires them at the factory...



Accattone
Accattone(1961)
7.707

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 Phantom of Liberty

This Surrealist film, with a title referencing the Communist Manifesto, strings together short incidents based on the life of director Luis Buñuel. Presented as chance encounters, these loosely related, intersecting situations, all without a consistent protagonist, reach from the 19th century to the 1970s. Touching briefly on subjects such as execution, pedophilia, incest, and sex, the film features an array of characters, including a sick father and incompetent police officers.



Totò, Peppino and... the Sweet Life

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



Like a Cat on a Highway

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



Balancing Act
6.682

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.



I, Daniel Blake
7.709

A middle aged carpenter, who requires state welfare after injuring himself, is joined by a single mother in a similar scenario.



Il figlio più piccolo

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.



Fantozzi Still Suffers

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



Auguri professore
6.3

Professor Lipari teaches in a public school and is in a full-on existential crisis. He has no faith in himself and in the possibility of changing the world for the better. At school, a former student of his who is also a teacher will change his attitude.



Ro.Go.Pa.G.
7.2

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



The Birds, the Bees and the Italians

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.



Pigsty
Pigsty(1969)
7.1

Two dramatic stories. In an undetermined past, a young cannibal (who killed his own father) is condemned to be torn to pieces by some wild beasts. In the second story, Julian, the young son of a post-war German industrialist, is on the way to lie down with his farm's pigs, because he doesn't like human relationships.



Happy as Lazzaro
7.4

Purehearted teen Lazzaro is content living as a sharecropper in rural Italy, but an unlikely friendship with the marquise’s son will change his world.



The Spider's Stratagem

A young man returns to his countryside hometown to investigate the unclear circumstances behind the death of his father, ostensibly killed by Fascists in 1936, before his birth. As he unravels a web of lies that seems to encompass the whole town, he finds himself entangled in the same web.



I Vitelloni
7.6

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.



The Canterbury Tales

Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories.



The Song of Sparrows
7.545

When an ostrich-rancher focuses on replacing his daughter's hearing aid, which breaks right before crucial exams, everything changes for a struggling rural family in Iran. Karim motorbikes into a world alien to him - incredibly hectic Tehran, where sudden opportunities for independence, thrill and challenge him. But his honor and honesty, plus traditional authority over his inventive clan, are tested, as he stumbles among vast cultural and economic gaps between his village nestled in the desert, and a throbbing international metropolis.



The Terrace
7.16

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.



Aprile
Aprile(1998)
7.3

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



The Witches
6

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.



Film Socialisme
5.993

A symphony in three movements. Things such as a Mediterranean cruise, numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday... Our Europe. At night, a sister and her younger brother have summoned their parents to appear before the court of their childhood. The children demand serious explanations of the themes of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Our humanities. Visits to six sites of true or false myths: Egypt, Palestine, Odessa, Hellas, Naples and Barcelona.



Poor but Richer
5.681

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



Amarcord
Amarcord(1973)
7.9

In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.



Misunderstood
7.521

The story of a widower and his two sons, focusing on their complex and sometimes difficult relationships.



The Fifth Wheel
6.5

The life of a working-class boy in Rome through the '70s and '80s, choosing his own path with his friends and family.



My Friends
8.1

Four inseparable friends try to face their midlife crisis with daytrips and pranks at the expense of their families and the people around them.



The Monk of Monza

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.



Io sono Tempesta
5.8

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



Made in Italy
6.067

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



Caterina in the Big City

When her social-climbing father is relocated from small-town North to his native Rome, 12-year-old Caterina enrolls to his old school, finding herself at sea with an environment where students sort themselves by social class and their parents' political affiliation.



Serafino
Serafino(1968)
6

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



Toto and the Kings of Rome

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



The Marquis of Grillo

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



Si muore tutti democristiani

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



Santocielo
5.955

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



A Liberal Passion
5.641

When an uncompromising idealist and rich, arrogant heir cross paths, their contrasting beliefs begin to shift when they fall for each other.



Belli di papà
5.913

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



Martin Eden
7

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.



The Painted Bird
7.079

After losing his parents, a young Jewish boy wanders Eastern Europe, seeking refuge during World War II.



La Dolce Vita
8.054

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.



Genitori & figli - Agitare bene prima dell'uso

Parent-teenage children clashes in 21st century Italy.



Placido
Placido(1962)
7.6

In a small Spanish town, during the Christmas holidays, a group of rich old ladies organize a peculiar event that consists of inviting a homeless person to sit down to dinner at their wealthy table. Plácido, a humble worker, is hired by the organizers to participate in a parade with his three-wheeled vehicle, a seemingly simple mission that will not be easy for him to accomplish.



Forgive Us Our Debts

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



Poverty and Nobility

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



Catch-22
Catch-22(1970)
6.7

A WWII military pilot makes a valiant effort to be certified insane in order to be excused from flying missions. But there's a catch.



Land of the Sons
6.079

Civilisation is coming to an end. The death of his only relative gives a feral boy the pretext to journey beyond the confines of his home environment; only by doing this will he be able to decipher his father's journal, the most valuable artefact in his legacy. This singular contribution to the post-apocalyptic sci-fi genre tells of a humanity in crisis, while at the same time conveying the adventurous spirit of adolescence.



Miracle in Milan
7.3

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.



Sun in Buckets
6.766

The story of a father and a son. An on the road trip from South to North.



God Willing
6.5

The son of an atheist, authoritarian father, believed to be liberal, wants to become a priest.



Weekend
Weekend(1967)
6.884

A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.



Europe '51
7.4

A wealthy, self-absorbed Rome socialite is racked by guilt over the death of her young son. As a way of dealing with her grief and finding meaning in her life, she decides to devote her time and money to the city’s poor and sick. Her newfound, single-minded activism leads to conflicts with her husband and questions about her sanity.



Days and Clouds
6.8

Set in Genoa, the film concerns the financial struggles and emotional strain that occur after Michele loses his job. He and his wife Elsa are forced to give up their affluent lifestyle and cope with the tensions of moving into a smaller home, finding new work, and making sacrifices.



City of Women
6.9

The charismatic Snaporaz encounters an alluring woman on a train and pursues her through a forest. He ends up at a hotel populated by women gathered for a feminist conference, where he is an unwanted presence. Snaporaz soon discovers he’s entered a phantasmagoric world where women have taken power.



Fantozzi in Heaven
5.8

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



I Am Self-Sufficient

Michele Apicella lives in Rome, in an apartment paid for by his father. Abandoned by his wife and his son Andrea, he occupies his time acting in an experimental theater company under the artistic direction of his friend Fabio.



The Tree of Wooden Clogs

On a northern Italian farm, Batistì and his wife decide to send their son Minec to school, sacrificing his help in the fields but hoping to break the cycle of poverty in the family. But when Minec’s shoe breaks while walking for miles, Batisti puts the family’s future at risk to replace the clog.



The Basilisks
7.6

The uneventful lives of three young men who live in a small, poverty-stricken village in southern Italy.



Human Capital
7.5

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.



Whatsoeverly
6.1

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



Familia
Familia(2024)
6.961

Luigi has lived with his mother and little brother since their abusive father Franco left when he was 10. Now a young man brimming with rage, he joins a far-right gang in search of belonging, but Franco's return poisons everything.



Mom or Dad?
5.839

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



Roma
Roma(1972)
7.2

A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.



Ugly, Dirty and Bad

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



Anplagghed al Cinema

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



The Return of Don Camillo

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



Easy!
Easy!(2011)
6.4

The life of a melancholy professor is turned upside down when he discovers that a rebellious teenager he is tutoring is actually his son.



The Swallows of Kabul

Summer 1998—Kabul under Taliban rule. Zunaira and Mohsen are young and in love. Despite the daily violence and misery, they hope for a better future. One day, a foolish gesture causes life to take an irrevocable turn.



Kes
Kes(1970)
7.421

Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.



The Man Next Door
6.6

When two neighbours clash, their argument becomes less about proposed building alterations and more about the wider battle between class and social status. The hugely impressive building in question is the only example of a Le Corbusier residential home in all of Latin America, adding to the poignancy of their argument.



Giovanna's Father
6.9

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.



The Mass Is Ended
7.408

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.



Nineties Part II
5.4

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



Birdy
Birdy(1984)
7.1

Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam War. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?



The Boom
The Boom(1963)
6.808

Sweet-sour comedy on Italy's 1950s rage to get rich as fast as possible! The businessman wants to satisfy his wife's craving for luxury and a "respectable life" so he becomes heavily indebted. In desperation he agrees to sell a precious part of his body for a large sum of money. But just before the crucial operation he panics...



Property Is No Longer a Theft

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



The Clown
The Clown(2011)
7.2

The life of the owners of Circus Esperança, Puro Sangue e Pangaré, father and son, who plays two clowns. At a certain point, Pangaré starts showing tiredness and sadness for being an unhappy clown.



Enea
Enea(2024)
6.2

Enea chases after the myth he bears in his name; he does so to feel alive in a dead and decadent age. He does so together with Valentino, a newly baptized aviator. The two, in addition to dealing and partying, share youth. Lifelong friends, victims and perpetrators of a corrupt world, but moved by an incorruptible vitality. Beyond the boundaries of rules, on the other side of morality, there is a sea full of humanity and symbols to be discovered. Enea and Valentino will fly over it to the furthest extremes. However, drugs and the underworld are the invisible shadow of a story about something else: a melancholy father, a brother fighting at school, a mother defeated by love and a beautiful girl, a happy ending and a happy death, a palm tree falling on a glass world.



The Merchant of Four Seasons

Hans is a street fruit peddler and born loser. His choice of career upsets his bourgeois family, causing him to turn to drinking and violence. After recovering from a debilitating heart attack, his business finally begins to take off. However, the more he becomes a credit to his family, the more depressed he becomes.



Germinal
Germinal(1993)
6.7

It's mid 19th century, north of France. The story of a coal miner's town. They are exploited by the mine's owner. One day the decide to go on strike, and then the authorities repress them.



Sud
Sud(1993)
6.8

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 Brighter Tomorrow

An old film director, unhappy with the movie he's shooting about a Hungarian circus stranded in Rome during the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, faces divorce from his producer wife and other problems.



The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.



Some Time Later
6.2

Planet Earth, 9177. The remains of humankind live in a post-apocalyptic environment divided into only two social classes: the ruling king and the oligarchs who inhabit the Representative Building and the poor of the world who hardly survive in the slums built around it.



Unlikely Revolutionaries

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



Il ragazzo di campagna

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



A Bad Son
A Bad Son(1980)
7.439

Bruno is released from prison. He looks for a job and tries to start a new life. His first stop is at his father's apartment.



Giordano Bruno
6.304

Fleeing from his enemies in the Catholic Church, the free thinking philosopher, poet and scientist Giordano Bruno has found some protection in Venice. But the Roman Inquisition, fearing his influence in Europe, wants to bring him on trial for 'heresy'.



La Strada
La Strada(1954)
7.91

When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.

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