Rome, Open City

During the Nazi occupation of Rome in 1944, the leader of the Resistance is chased by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a way to escape.

Germany, Year Zero

In the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, a twelve-year-old boy is left to his own devices in order to help provide for his family.

General Della Rovere

The Gestapo forces con man Victorio Bardone to impersonate a dead partisan general in order to extract information from his fellow inmates.

Augustine of Hippo

A biography of St. Augustine as he enters the episcopacy and deals with heresy and the decline of the Western Roman Empire.

The Messiah

Rossellini takes numerous liberties with the original source material, rearranging and omitting events at will, presenting everything in a highly undramatic fashion. The film begins in the time of the Old Testament, allowing Rossellini to present the story of Jesus in its ancient, historic context.

Joan of Arc at the Stake

Joan of Arc is being burned alive for heresy. In a kind of dream state, she departs from her body and begins to look back upon her life. She begins this journey in a depressed and demoralized state. However, a priest appears to help guide her. First, he shows her those that accused her in the guise of animal characters, in order to show her their true nature. Then, he shows her the good that she has performed for people. In the end, she is proud of what she has done and is ready to face the flames.

La vispa Teresa

La vispa Teresa (“Lively Theresa”) is based on a well known song; a girl, ten, catches a butterfly and all the other insects intervene to save it.

Journey to Italy

This deceptively simple tale of a bored English couple travelling to Italy to find a buyer for a house inherited from an uncle is transformed by Roberto Rossellini into a passionate story of cruelty and cynicism as their marriage disintegrates around them.

Undersea Fantasy

The tale of two fish in love, threatened by an octopus and saved by an eel.

Stromboli

After the end of WWII, a young Lithuanian woman and a young Italian man from Stromboli impulsively marry, but married life on the island is more demanding than she can accept.

Year One

Rossellini’s biopic of the postwar Christian Democrat leader, Alcide De Gaspari, who was responsible for keeping the Communists out of power in the years that followed the fall of fascism.

Paisan

Six vignettes follow the Allied invasion from July 1943 to winter 1944, from Sicily north to Venice.

Concert for Michelangelo

Rossellini explores the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel during a concert by the chorus of the Cappella Musicale Pontificia conducted by Monsignor Domenico Bartolucci.