During the Middle Ages, a traveling executioner hires an apprentice to learn the finer points of torture and execution, and a young girl is given by her parents to a Catholic convent.
The life of Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) from his arrival on Sicily's shores via shipwreck in 1221 to his death. He's a Portuguese monk who, once in Italy, seeks out St. Francis. Anthony's gift as a great preacher is discovered by happenstance. He spends much of his life in and near Padua, a city run by usurers. Anthony offers protection and friendship to Folco, at one time a petty criminal and acolyte to the usurers, later falsely accused of murder. Anthony's teaching and his spiritual strength lead to changes in the character of Padua and an end to usury. He became its patron Saint soon after his death, and 32 years later, his casket is opened and his tongue remains intact.
Zurich, 1905. Nineteen-year-old Russian Sabina Spielrein is put by her parents in a psychiatric hospital, suffering from a severe form of hysteria and refusing to eat. A compassionate doctor, Carl Gustav Jung, takes her under his care and, for the first time, experiments with the psychoanalytical method of his teacher Sigmund Freud. Thus is born a sweeping story of love and passion, of body and soul, soaring to the utmost heights, but also plunging to the darkest depths of the 20th century.
An American film-star and an unknown British actress meet on set in Rome. She is angry when he refuses to speak to her journalist father, but later they have a passionate relationship.
During the invasion of Ethiopia in 1936, a wounded Italian soldier ends up stranded in the desert after a truck wreck. He makes his way to the nearest army hospital, losing his sanity in the process.
A young Roman woman during the 1950s is on the verge of becoming engaged to a man. She goes to Cinecittà to do an audition as an extra and is thrust into this almost infinite night during which she discovers herself.
The enthusiasms, fears, joys and disappointments of the (private and professional) life of a well-known group of boys fond of physics and mathematics, who just made history as the Via Panisperna boys.
Saint Peter, a reluctant but passionate leader, from the crucifixion of Jesus to his own. The film's first half dramatizes the New Testament's "Acts": early fear, the renewal of Pentecost, Saul's conversion, the decision to baptize pagans, and the Apostles' dispersal. In the second half, an aged Peter goes to Rome to join Paul, arriving on the day of Paul's arrest. Paul's death brings a crisis to Rome's Christians and to Peter; lessons from Jesus's teachings guide his decision to stay. Events within the fictive household of Persius, a Roman aristocrat, capture the upheaval that Christian teachings bring to the Eternal City.
Piedmont (Italy), nineteenth century. In Turin, the priest Don Bosco, a man from a humble farming family, he gave himself totally and passionately to the task of collecting from the streets to marginalized children and care for them. Not only out of poverty, ignorance and social distress, but it got for the first time, to feel loved. He fought with extraordinary faith and tenacity to overcome obstacles and snares that both the civilian and ecclesiastical authorities, they put in their path to prevent him from completing his goal: the founding of the Congregation of the Salesians, which would guarantee the future of their children .
Simon Henderson is at boarding school in Canada while his father works in Hong Kong, and his mother lives in England. When his parents visit him in the holidays, Simon discovers that his mother has schizophrenia.
Two penniless cousins have a common passion: to be inventors, but they never managed to make money out of their patents. Their only hope is represented by their hateful and rich uncle.
A mythical land who must be discover. Or invented. In an impressive library, two old men. One is a great Polish archaeologist at the end of his work. The second- his best friend. They are masters of a substantial slice of human history: legendary Atlantis. It is refuge and masterpiece, propriety and treasure.
A king was dying. An old man told his sons that only the water of life would save him.
The isolated lives of people on a farm at the top of the mountains are changed by a ten-year-old child named Mirka.
November 1944, Latium countryside. The last hours of a partisan's life. An attempt to remember what it means, and how difficult it is, to be free.
Two romantically involved government operatives Claire Stenwick and Ray Koval team up to manipulate a race between opposing corporations to corner the market on a medical innovation that will reap huge profits and allow them to lead an extravagant lifestyle together. They find themselves on opposing sides as corporate spies; however, as they each try to outdo the other, neither one can decide how far to trust the other in this high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse.
After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.
After the 8th September 1943 north of Italy is occupied by Germans. Italian army collapsed and the soldiers are escaped to the mountains trying to set up a resistance. Many civilians did the same and Johnny, an English literature student, is among them. Johnny avoids to band together the red partisans (communists) and tries to be part of the azure bands (former regular soldiers). But in both cases he is deluded by the partisan bands and discovers that the partisan war is less poetic and genuine that he thought. At one point anyway the partisans free Alba from Germans. When the city falls again in German hands Johnny escape with Ettore and Pierre. But, one after another, German army and Italian fascists captures the partisans and Johnny will pass the winter alone and isolated. He then finds the way to participate to one of the last attack to occupants, in fact the war will be over two months later.
The life and loves of poet Sibilla Aleramo (Laura Morante), focusing on her relationship with Dino Campana (Stefano Accorsi).
On June 28, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot to death in Sarajewo. His assassination caused a chain of events that brought about World War I and the downfall of old Europe. Who is the assassin? Who is GAVRE PRINCIP, a man that fate brought into the center of world attention. The subject of the film is not the historical background but rather the psychological makeup of PRINCIP at the age of seventeen.
The story of Benvenuto Cellinin (1500-1571), a soldier and one of the most important craftsmen and artists of Renaissance Italy whose life was marked by many achievements and adventures, but also crimes. There is also the mini-series version consisted of three 90 minutes episodes, broadcasted by RaiDue.
An acclaimed novelist struggles to write an analysis of love in one of three stories, each set in a different city, that detail the beginning, middle and end of a relationship.
After the bankruptcy of their father's stonemasonry firm, brothers Nicola and Andrea emigrate to America to restore their fortunes. After many adventures and near-disasters, they end up in Hollywood, designing sets for D.W. Griffith, and marry beautiful actresses. However, tragedy strikes with the arrival of World War I, which finds the brothers fighting on opposite sides...
At the end of the XIX century in Russia, Prince Dimitri Necklivdov is called as a jury-man in a trial. The defendant is Katiuscia Maslova, accused of murdering a merchant in order to rob him. Dimitri recognizes Katiuscia: she was the girl he seduced many years before. Dimitri decides to save her.
For centuries, a secret Order of priests has existed within the Church. A renegade priest, Father Alex Bernier, is sent to Rome to investigate the mysterious death of one of the Order's most revered members. Following a series of strangely similar killings, Bernier launches an investigation that forces him to confront unimaginable evil.