Italian
see all genres ›One of the great centers of film production since cinema's earliest days, Italy has always juggled artistic prestige and the ever-shifting genre demands of the marketplace. Over the decades, Italy has exported trends in historical spectacle, neo-realism, sexploitation and violent shock value while also giving us the unalloyed genius of Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci and many more (including Mario Bava and a handful other remarkable Italian filmmakers that rarely get mentioned in the same company as the above but are certainly every bit as worthy).
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Genres / International / European / Italian
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A Bay of Blood
One of the most influential horror films of all time, Mario Bava's A BAY OF BLOOD (aka TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE) is the spurting artery from which all future slasher films would flow. When crippled Countess Federica is murdered at her isolated mansion, a gruesome battle ensues to secure the...Watch Movie
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Black Sunday
In one of the most auspicious directorial debuts in movie history, Mario Bava bridged the gap between the gothic horror picture and the European art film with BLACK SUNDAY (aka LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO or THE MASK OF SATAN). Made in 1960 and now considered a cult classic, it continues to...Watch Movie
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Marriage Italian Style
One of the most famous and funniest Italian comedies of all time, MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE received nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actress for Sophia Loren at the Academy Awards®. Marcello Mastroianni co-stars as the irrepressibly carnal businessman...Watch Movie
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Black Sabbath
One of the great horror anthology films and Mario Bava's personal favorite of his works, BLACK SABBATH solidified the director's reputation as Europe's maestro of the macabre. In THE TELEPHONE, a woman is haunted by menacing phone calls from a former lover. THE WURDULAK stars Boris Karloff as a...Watch Movie
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Blood and Black Lace
An unscrupulous business operating under the guise of a top fashion house becomes a murder scene after someone is pushed to the edge. The saga begins when a beautiful model is brutally murdered and her boyfriend is suspected of the crime. But is he guilty or is someone waiting...Watch Movie
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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
An American writer (Tony Musante) traveling in Rome is the only witness to an attempted murder by a sinister man in a raincoat and black leather gloves, though he is powerless to do anything to stop him. With a feeling that something is not quite right about the scene he has...Watch Movie
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Nostalghia
NOSTALGHIA is Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding late masterpiece, a darkly poetic vision of exile. It was the first of his features to be made outside of Russia, the home to which he would never return. Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word "nostalghia" conveys "the love for your homeland and...Watch Movie
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Love and Anarchy
An epic tragicomedy from director Lina Wertmuller, LOVE AND ANARCHY plumbs the depths of fascist Italy from the perspective of a simple farm boy sent to kill Mussolini. Giancarlo Giannini won the best acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his achingly sensitive...Watch Movie
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Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film at the 1964 Academy Awards®, YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW is a sparklingly original comedy that casts Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren in three different stories throughout Italy. In Naples, they are poor but resourceful, selling...Watch Movie
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In the Folds of the Flesh
In a genre defined by shocking violence and psychosexual kink, it remains perhaps the most over-the-top "giallo" in EuroCult history: former MGM starlet and doomed James Dean paramour Pier Angeli (two decades past her Golden Globe award for "Most Promising Newcomer" and just...Watch Movie
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Lisa and the Devil
Regarded as Mario Bava's most personal and unconventional film, LISA AND THE DEVIL is a diabolical thriller flavored with the dreadful imagery and tormenting logic of an endless nightmare. Elke Sommer stars as a tourist in Spain who, upon seeing the image of a bald, grinning...Watch Movie
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Hatchet for the Honeymoon
Seven years after innovating the grisly Italian genre known as giallo, Mario Bava returned to the form to create one of its deliriously frightening examples: HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (IL ROSSO SEGNO DELA FOLLIA). Stephen Forsyth stars as John Harrington, the head of an...Watch Movie
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The Rape of Europa
THE RAPE OF EUROPA is an epic journey through seven countries, into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe. For twelve long years, the Nazis looted and destroyed art on a scale unprecedented in...Watch Movie
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Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man
Referenced in Tarantino’s KILL BILL VOL. 2, UOMINI SI NASCE POLIZIOTTI SI MUORE (LIVE LIKE A COP, DIE LIKE A MAN, 1976) opens with an insane motorcycle chase that was filmed in rush hour in downtown Rome with no permission from the local authorities. To top it off, this is one...Watch Movie
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Nightmare Castle
At the height of her career as the dark goddess of Italian horror, the legendary Barbara Steele delivered two of her most memorable performances in this tale of obsession, madness and depravity. Steele stars as a cheating wife who is chained, whipped and tortured to death by...Watch Movie
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Five Dolls for an August Moon
FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON is Mario Bava's deliriously mod spin on an Agatha Christie-style whodunit. Bava was so closely associated with the horror genre that this twisting mystery was never released in the U.S. but it is deliciously entertaining all the same. A space age...Watch Movie
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Boccaccio '70
Four legendary filmmakers direct some of Europe's biggest stars in BOCCACCIO '70, a landmark anthology film. Mario Monicelli (BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET), Federico Fellini (LA DOLCE VITA), Luchino Visconti (THE LEOPARD) and Vittorio De Sica (BICYCLE THIEVES) direct Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg,...Watch Movie
