Bicycle Thieves

Director: Vittorio De Sica, Vittorio De Sica

1948 / 93min / DCP

The single best-known work of postwar Italian neorealist cinema, with a script by the movement’s leading theoretician/philosopher, Cesare Zavattini. Using nonprofessional performers and shooting in the real streets of Rome, Bicycle Thieves tells the story of a penniless man (Lamberto Maggiorani) who’s first overjoyed to find a job hanging posters that will allow him to provide for his family, then crestfallen when the bicycle he needs for his work is stolen. A simple story, told honestly and with infinite compassion—and a quiet revolution in world cinema.