Mario is in Hannover to work as a miner but after loosing his job he decides to go back to Italy. When Totonno steals his passport to avoid the police and later on he offers him a new job as "magliaro" (cloth seller), Mario changes his mind and decides to follow Totonno to Hamburg. In Hamburg, Totonno and his friends have to sell Mayer's cloth but they meet with the hostility of a Polish gang and Mario falls in love with Paula Mayer.

Since her husband pronounced her frigid on her wedding night, Antonia DeAngelis has been an invalid. When he disappears, she believes him dead: she leaves her bed and takes over his business, traveling to see clients. She discovers her husband's passions, his political writing, mistresses, and his indifference to the peasants on her family's land. She improves their lot, begins an affair with a young foreign doctor, and publishes her husband's writings. All this time, he's hiding from a murder charge in a house across the square. Amazed, he watches her become his sexual and social equal. After the police drop the murder charge, will he disappear, end his life, or rejoin her on new terms?

Vito Polara is ambitious and wants to get as more power and money as possible. He decides to leave the cigarette smuggling and try to get the total control of the regional fruit and vegetable distribution considered more profitable. He looks for the help of a rural crime Boss.

The usual gang of robbers in engaged by a thief from Milan to steal a suitcase full of money, but troubles will menace the success of the operation.

Alberto Menichetti lives with an aunt and an old housekeeper, Clotilde; he has a job in a firm and his boss is Mrs. De Ritis, a widow whose husband was killed during a wild boar hunt. She likes him but Alberto likes Marcella; she is under age and he is awaiting her birthday to declare his love. His greater traits are to be fearful of everything and to be selfish. This nature will get him into trouble..

Two racy women decide to chuck their mundane lives and go on a wild adventure.

The boy Vito is a portrait of beauty and wide-eyed innocence spawned from a violent family of kidnapers and murderers in the South of Italy. When his entire family is murdered by a rival clan of kidnapers, Vito must flee for his own life and in the end attempts to make atonement for some of his family's sins.

Sandra returns to her hometown to take care of family business, but childhood memories and secrets soon overcome her.

Torn by personal guilt, Italian General Umberto Nobile reminisces about his 1928 failed Arctic expedition aboard the airship Italia.

Leo (Rod Steiger) is an aristocrat whose family fortunes have plummeted in this downbeat melodrama. He seeks to reverse his money problems by courting the wealthy Mariagrazia (Paulette Goddard), throwing over his former lover Lisa (Shelley Winters) in his quest to continue his posh lifestyle. Mariagrazia is too caught up in the attention of the charming, conniving Leo to notice that he also makes a play for her daughter Carla (Claudia Cardinale). Mariagarzia continues to want Leo even after he gains control of family fortune and property. Meanwhile, Carla's brother Michele (Tomas Milian) takes up with the jilted Lisa. Finally, in a most poignant scene, the ailing matron finally realizes she has been used by Leo. Excellent performances all around. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.