TheoremMovies like Theorem
- Key Features:
- Existentialism, Social alienation, Sexual awakening, Moral decay, Working class, Italian cinema, Avant-garde, Stranger, Family drama, Philosophical, Nudity-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, stylized, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Art house enthusiasts, Intellectual viewers, Fans of European cinema
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Disruption → Despair
Theorem

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.
Theorem
Meursault is a man who feels utterly isolated from everyone and everything around him. This alienation results in sudden, inexplicable bursts of violence, culminating in murder.

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.

Dumped by his girlfriend and finding himself stranded on different couches at friends’ places, Guido tries to transform his drift into an opportunity for a new beginning.

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.

The morning Stella decides to take her own life, a stranger knocks at her door claiming the guest room he booked for the night. Surprised but charmed by this man who seems to know her very well, Stella decides to let him in. But when Sandro, the man who broke Stella's heart, joins them at home, this odd situation turns immediately into chaos.

In a dysfunctional family where the mother is a heroin addict and prostitute, beaten by her son, and the father is an ex-TV reporter, sleeping with his daughter and filming his son being beaten up, ‘Q’, a complete stranger enters the bizarre family, changing their lives for the better, finding a balance in their disturbing natures.

The future of Marguerite, a brilliant student in Mathematics at the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure, seems all planned out. The only woman from her year, Marguerite is finishing a thesis she has to present to an audience of researchers. On the big day, a mistake shakes all her certainties and all her foundations collapse.

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.

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

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...

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

A widower and two of his sons become infatuated by their beautiful housekeeper, and all three set out to seduce her using their own unique methods.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Roman police detectives interrogate a series of potential perpetrators in their struggle to determine whom to arrest for the brutal murder of a beautiful prostitute whose body is discovered in a park on the day of a torrential rainstorm. One by one, the prime suspects -- girl-crazy teenager Nino, pickpocket Canticchia, a soldier on leave, a tourist and a pimp -- recount the events of the day to the police, each insisting he is innocent.

We are with Pasolini during the last hours of his life, as he talks with his beloved family and friends, writes, gives a brutally honest interview, shares a meal with Ninetto Davoli, and cruises for the roughest rough trade in his gun-metal gray Alfa Romeo. Over the course of the action, Pasolini’s life and his art are constantly refracted and intermingled to the point where they become one.

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.

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.

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.

Rome, 1957. A woman, Cabiria, is robbed and left to drown by her boyfriend, Giorgio. Rescued, she resumes her life and tries her best to find happiness in a cynical world. Even when she thinks her struggles are over and she has found happiness and contentment, things may not be what they seem.

"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.

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.

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.

A mathematical genius discovers a link between numbers and reality, and thus believes he can predict the future.

Pierre Perdrix has been enjoying an enchanted though restless existence since the enigmatic Juliette Webb burst into his life, a stranger who landed in his family's unique world like a meteorite, and who by her presence alone will force this tight-knit microcosm to redefie their boundaries and finally begin to fully live their lives.

Cate Blanchett stars as Philippa, a British teacher living in Turin, Italy, who has seen many friends, including her husband, fall victim to drug overdoses. Philippa has repeatedly contacted the police with information about Turin's biggest drug dealer but, complicit in his dealings, they have completely ignored her. So Philippa decides to dole out her own form of justice with a homemade bomb -- setting her off on a journey from young widow to fugitive on the run.

Catherine is a woman in her late twenties who is strongly devoted to her father, Robert, a brilliant and well-known mathematician whose grip on reality is beginning to slip away. As Robert descends into madness, Catherine begins to wonder if she may have inherited her father's mental illness along with his mathematical genius.

A sudden tragedy hits a wealthy middle-class family from North-East Italy. Tensions, hidden secrets and small hypocrisies emerge.

A lonely criminology professor attempts to solve the mystery behind five murders by decoding the puzzle of five Pythagorean theorems, in a crime story that features renowned French actor François Cluzet in a key-role.

Onoff is a famous writer, now a recluse. The Inspector is suspicious when Onoff is brought into the station one night, disoriented and suffering a kind of amnesia. In an isolated, rural police station, the Inspector tries to establish the events surrounding a killing, to reach a startling resolution.

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.

Deep within Buenos Aires's labyrinthine subway system, a train mysteriously disappears along with its 30 passengers. The subway officials are greatly troubled and call in topographer Daniel Pratt to help them find it. Unfortunately, the tunnels are so vast and complex, that Pratt needs his mentor Hugo Mistein to help him. Unfortunately, he has vanished too.

A well-off Indian family is paid an unexpected, and rather unwanted, visit by a man claiming to be the woman's long lost uncle. The initial suspicion with which they greet the man slowly dissolves as he regales them with stories of his travels, tales that are at odds with their conventional middle class perspective on the world.

Sebastiano teaches high school gym classes and coaches swimming. He’s got a job, a girlfriend, and a pretty normal life. But as young Martin starts to infiltrate Sebastiano’s life, his world will get turned upside down. Eerie from the first frame, this Hitchcockian thriller portrays sexual obsession with terrifying realism.

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.

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.

A computer hacker's goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.

An Italian diplomat's son follows and seduces English lovers in Venice.

A police inspector comes into contact with people of all types and dispositions during a grueling murder investigation.

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.

Algiers, 1938. Meursault, a quiet and unassuming employee in his early thirties, attends his mother's funeral without shedding a tear. The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie, a work colleague. He quickly slips back into his usual routine. However, his daily life is soon about to be disrupted by his neighbor, Raymond Sintès, who draws Meursault into his shady dealings. Until one blisteringly hot day, a tragic event occurs on a beach...

In Italy, a woman fears her sister has been kidnapped; Inspector Enzo Avolfi fears it's worse. They team up to rescue her from a sadistic killer known only as Yellow.

Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. The film, which unspools the connections and family drama shared between the students, complies with several aesthetic principles of Dogme 95 movement.

Claudia and Anna join Anna's lover, Sandro, on a boat trip to a remote volcanic island. When Anna goes missing, a search is launched. In the meantime, Sandro and Claudia become involved in a romance despite Anna's disappearance, though the relationship suffers from guilt and tension.

Matteo is a young successful businessman, audacious, charming and energetic. Ettore instead, is a calm, righteous, second grade teacher always living in the shadows, still in the small town from where both come from. They’re brothers but with two very different personalities. A dramatic event will force them to live together in Rome for a few months, bringing up the opportunity to face their differences with sympathy and tenderness, in a climax of fear and euphoria.

After refusing big and prestigious awards all over the world, Mr. Mantovani, Literature Nobel Prize winner, accepts an invitation to visit his hometown in Argentina, which has been the inspiration for all of his books. It turns out that accepting this invitation is the worst idea of his life. Expect the unexpected when you have used real people as characters in your novels!

When socialite and heiress Julie Wardh begins receiving blackmail letters attributed to a mysterious serial killer, she suspects her cruel and sadistic former lover Jean is behind them. With her husband Neil frequently out of town, she falls into the arms of her friend's cousin George, and as the unknown assassin begins to make his move, she fears that one of the three men in her life may be the killer.

An extended family reunites on an idyllic island to celebrate their grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. However, a storm causes them to get stuck in there longer than expected, causing secrets and long-held grudges to break out.

The fates of an apparently random group of strangers who each come into contact with a mysterious figure who they believe possesses the power to grant any wish, in return for which they must carry out a task he assigns them.

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

A man wakes up one morning with an annoying ringing sound in his ears. A note on the fridge says: "Your friend Luigi has died. P.S. I took the car". The problem is that he does not even remember who this guy Luigi is. This is just the beginning of a tragicomic day during which he will be plunged into the folly of the world. One of those days that changes your life forever.

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.

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.

David Locke is a world-weary American journalist who has been sent to cover a conflict in northern Africa, but he makes little progress with the story. When he discovers the body of a stranger who looks similar to him, Locke assumes the dead man's identity. However, he soon finds out that the man was an arms dealer, leading Locke into dangerous situations. Aided by a beautiful woman, Locke attempts to avoid both the police and criminals out to get him.

A policeman takes his family on a holiday, and after almost hitting a wild hog, the car won't start. They get hike with a guy scrutinizing his pretty wife. Shortly after, she disappears.

Suddenly and inexplicably Marco and Giulia wake up with three children aged 10, 9 and 6 who call them mum and dad. Getting rid of it and returning to the happy "previous" life will become their only goal.

November 2, 1975: Pier Paolo Pasolini is murdered in the outskirts of Rome. The suspect, a 17-year-old hustler, pleads to have acted in self-defense, citing Pasolini's notorious sexual habits as proof. However, many inconsistencies start to undermine his version, pointing to him not having acted alone or even being assaulted in the first place. Was Pasolini also killed for another reason?

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?

Following the death of her wealthy husband, American widow Kathryn West migrates to Italy and takes up a reclusive existence in a luxurious villa. After quickly succumbing to the charms of a local man, she lets him move into the villa and the two are later joined by his sister, which soon leads to complications.

Leone is a rich and powerful man whose loneliness drives him to hire a cast of actors to play the family he never had. On Christmas Eve, reality and make-believe start to get blurred.

A recent college graduate flees to Paris after a break-up, where his involvement with a prostitute begins to reveal a potentially dark recent past.

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

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.

Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.

Clara and Felice struggle to raise their three children in 1970s Rome. The eldest, Andrew, is transgender and yearns for another life where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Clara instinctively strives to protect her son by escaping into their imaginations to defuse family tensions.

A group of families on a tropical holiday discover that the secluded beach where they are staying is somehow causing them to age rapidly – reducing their entire lives into a single day.

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.

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.

Arrogant, self-centered movie director Guido Contini finds himself struggling to find meaning, purpose, and a script for his latest film endeavor. With only a week left before shooting begins, he desperately searches for answers and inspiration from his wife, his mistress, his muse, and his mother.

A couple and their children move into a seemingly normal suburban home. When strange events occur, they begin to believe there is something else in the house with them. The presence is about to disrupt their lives in unimaginable ways.

A young American woman traveling through Italy finds herself in a strange Mediterranean villa where nothing seems quite right.

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

A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices—and two strangers appear at their door.

Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

Vanni, Gregorio and Livia are brothers. The first is a well-known pianist, the second has abandoned his career as an aspiring violinist to become a deejay. When Vanni discovers that his father has disappeared into thin air, together with Gregorio they decide to call his sister Livia. The three relatives travel the length and breadth of Tuscany to find their missing parent.

Francesco is a psychoanalyst grappling with three hopeless causes: a bookseller in love with a book thief, a lesbian hell-bent on becoming straight after a heartbreak, and an 18-year-old in a relationship with a much older married man. Unfortunately, these patients are also his three beloved daughters!

Best-selling author Tyvian Jones has a life of leisure in Venice, Italy, until he has a chance encounter with sultry Frenchwoman Eva Olivier. He falls for her instantly, despite already having wedding plans with Francesca Ferrara. Winning Eva's affection proves elusive; she's more interested in money than in love. But Tyvian remain steadfast in his obsession, going after Eva with a fervor that threatens to destroy his life.

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.

Eccentric and full of manias, Michele is a young high school professor who defines himself as “not used to happiness”. He realizes his life is meaningless if he doesn’t have a woman by his side but, after a series of rather disastrous experiences, he feels more alone than ever. Then, out of the blue, a new French teacher called Bianca arrives at school. Amongst uncertainties and contradictions, the two start dating. In the meantime, a series of homicides take place and a police officer begins to suspect that Michele is involved. Bianca will save him providing an alibi at the right moment, but then, everything goes wrong again.

Womanizer father teaches clumsy son the decalogue of seduction: ten foolproof rules to make any woman fall in love. But the results will be not what expected.

A couple facing marital problems after losing their child finds their life together further complicated by a mysterious visitor.

In the vast rooms of a beautiful Sicilian villa, Anna receives an unexpected guest. Twenty-something Jeanne has arrived from France, declaring herself to be the girlfriend of Anna’s son, Giuseppe, who has invited her to the house to spend Easter together. But this is news to Anna, and Guiseppe is not yet there...

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.

The film tells about mainly three people - Max, a bored, smart, poor University Professor of Philosophy; Ramzes, a mafia leader, cool, strong, merciless bully and Stella, Ramzes girlfriend.

Matteo Scuro is a retired Sicilian bureaucrat, a widower with five children, all of whom live on the mainland and hold responsible jobs. He decides to surprise each with a visit and finds none as he imagined.

Alex, Ivo and Pacifico three Sicilian twin brothers are reunited for their father's funeral.

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.

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.

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.

Diana, a high-class prostitute trying to escape from a serial killer, suffers a car accident that leaves her blind and kills the family of Chin, a ten-year-old boy.

Lugano, Switzerland. Titta Di Girolamo is a discreet and sullen man who has been living for almost a decade in a modest hotel room, a prisoner of an atrocious routine, apparently without purpose. His past is a mystery, nobody knows what he does for a living, he answers indiscreet questions evasively. What secrets does this enigmatic man hide?

Suave antiques dealer Alfredo Martelli is picked up by the police with no justification. At the precinct, Martelli realizes what the investigation is all about-- that he is the main suspect in the killing of his wealthy ex-lover. Is he guilty, or is he just a sleaze?

A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.

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.

Mimma starts working in Madame Colette’s brothel to help her boyfriend financially. There she is rechristened “Paprika,” and falls in love with her first client, naval officer Franco. Despite this attraction, she begins her climb through the sex trade, residing in Italy’s most illustrious brothels.

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