La Maschera del Barbaro

World-renowned director Martin Scorsese narrates this journey through his favorites in Italian cinema.

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.

Three Chaplin silent comedies "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms", and "The Pilgrim" are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin provides new music, narration, and a small amount of new connecting material. "Shoulder Arms" is now described as taking place in a time before "the atom bomb".

In 1957 Trieste, a few months before the general ban on brothels, inexperienced country girl Mimma becomes Paprika to finance her useless boyfriend as a prostitute. Amid the hustle and bustle of Rome, Paprika drifts from one brothel to another as she learns the ropes and works her way up one client at a time. However, as Paprika embarks on a stormy journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation, the sense that something is missing haunts her. Is Paprika meant to experience a passionate romance and solve the great mystery of true love?

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.

A man attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye.

Stan and Ollie play door-to-door Christmas tree salesmen in California. They end up getting into an escalating feud with grumpy would-be customer James Finlayson, with his home and their car being destroyed in the melee.

A successful erotic film producer from Rome regularly receives letters from female fans seeking his advice on how to spice up their sex lives. Thanks to his years of experience in both the film business and the sex industry, he has all sorts of tips at the ready and, in an emergency, is happy to make a house call himself to demonstrate his qualities in person.

A young golfer is mugged by an escaped convict and finds himself in a prison where he foils a jailbreak.

Rome, 1990. The night Italy's national football team is eliminated from the World Cup by Argentina on penalty kicks, a well-known film producer is found dead in the Tiber river. The main suspects for the murder are three young aspiring screenwriters, who–promptly taken to the police–start to tell their version of the story.

Buster clowns around in a blacksmith's shop until he and the smithy get in a fight which sends the smithy to jail. Buster helps several customers with horses, then destroys a Rolls Royce while fixing the car parked next to it.

Charlie is released from prison and immediately swindled by a fake parson. A fellow ex-convict convinces Charlie to help burglarize a house.

Roscoe and Buster give a bullying Strongman the what-for, but after the performance troupe quits it's up to Fatty and Buster to keep the show going.

The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.

Stan and Ollie are hired to build a house in just one day. When they are done, a bird lands on the house and it collapses. Naturally, the owner wants his money back.

In a series of simple and joyous vignettes, director Roberto Rossellini and co-writer Federico Fellini lovingly convey the universal teachings of the People’s Saint: humility, compassion, faith, and sacrifice. Gorgeously photographed to evoke the medieval paintings of Saint Francis’s time, and cast with monks from the Nocera Inferiore Monastery, The Flowers of St. Francis is a timeless and moving portrait of the search for spiritual enlightenment.

12-year-old Renato experiences three significant events on the same day: the beginning of the Second World War, getting a bike, and witnessing the arrival of the gorgeous Malèna. Through his eyes, we see the curse of beauty and loneliness of Malena, whose husband is presumed dead, and, through his soul, we see his love for her.

In the 1970s, a British sound technician is brought to Italy to work on the sound effects for a gruesome horror film. His nightmarish task slowly takes over his psyche, driving him to confront his own past.

After spending three years in an asylum, a washed-up actor views a minor assignment from his old director in Rome as a chance for personal and professional redemption.

Six stories unfold in various regions, from Sicily to the northern Po Valley as American military personnel interact with a variety of Italian locals over eighteen months in the push north during the Italian Campaign of WWII as German forces retreat.