
Anna Magnani
Actor · 1908 – 1973 · Rome, Italy
Anna Magnani (pronounced: mahn-YANEE; 7 March 1908 – 26 September 1973) was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo. Born in Rome to an Egyptian father and an Italian mother, she worked her way through Rome's Academy of Dramatic Art by singing at night clubs. During her career, her only child was stricken by polio when he was 18 months old and remained crippled. She was referred to as "La Lupa," the "perennial toast of Rome" and a "living she-wolf symbol" of the cinema. Time magazine described her personality as "fiery", and drama critic Harold Clurman said her acting was "volcanic". In the realm of Italian cinema, she was "passionate, fearless, and exciting," an actress that film historian Barry Monush calls "the volcanic earth mother of all Italian cinema." Director Roberto Rossellini called her "the greatest acting genius since Eleonora Duse. Playwright Tennessee Williams became an admirer of her acting and wrote The Rose Tattoo specifically for her to star in, a role for which she received her first Oscar in 1955. After meeting director Goffredo Alessandrini she received her first screen role in La cieca di Sorrento (The Blind Woman of Sorrento) (1934) and later achieved international fame in Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), considered the first significant movie to launch the Italian neorealism movement in cinema. As an actress she became recognized for her dynamic and forceful portrayals of "earthy lower-class women" in such films as The Miracle (1948), Bellissima (1951), The Rose Tattoo (1955), The Fugitive Kind (1960), with Marlon Brando and directed by Sidney Lumet, and Mamma Roma (1962). As early as 1950, Life magazine had already stated that Magnani was "one of the most impressive actresses since Garbo". Description above from the Wikipedia article Anna Magnani, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Movies21
Movie8.0DramaWarDuring the Nazi occupation of 1944 Rome, Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi is pursued by the Nazis as he seeks refuge and a means of escape.
Movie7.3ComedyDramaA virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens.
Roma
1972 · 375 votes
Movie6.9ComedyDramaDuring World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.
The Secret of Santa Vittoria
1970 · 68 votes
Movie6.9RomanceDramaVal Xavier, a drifter of obscure origins, arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by Lady Torrence. Her husband, Jabe M. Torrance, is dying of cancer. Val is pursued by Carol Cutere, the enigmatic local tramp-of-good-family.
The Fugitive Kind
1960 · 122 votes
Movie6.9DramaRomanceA grieving widow embarks on a new romance when she discovers her late husband had been cheating on her.
The Rose Tattoo
1955 · 89 votes
Movie6.4DramaCrimeAmong others, Ernesto returns to Turin after the war from a German POW camp; his household destroyed and family deceased, he tries making an honest living.
Movie7.9DramaAfter years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved enough money to buy herself a fruit stand so that she can have a respectable middle-class life and reestablish contact with the 16-year-old son she abandoned when he was an infant. But her former pimp threatens to expose her sordid past, and her troubled son seems destined to fall into a life of crime and violence.
Mamma Roma
1962 · 447 votes
Movie9.0DocumentaryA study of Tennessee Williams's life and work as a whole, ranging from his youth in Mississippi and in St. Louis to success and acclaim, followed by the final difficult years. Includes some of the most celebrated scenes from film adaptations of Williams' work, among them extracts of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951),Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Night of the Iguana, The (1964), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1993) (TV). Contains footage of Williams being interviewed, including conversations with David Frost, 'Edward R. Murrow (I)', and Melvyn Bragg, as well as reminiscences from people who knew and worked with him, among them Edward Albee, Gore Vidal, and his lifelong friend, Lady Maria St. Just. Features readings from Elia Kazan's Notebook by Kim Hunter.
Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage
1994 · 1 votes
Movie7.1ComedyDramaA viceroy, a nobleman and a bullfighter court a comedy-troupe actress in 18th-century Peru.
Movie6.8DramaA widowed Nevada rancher goes to Italy and marries the sister of his deceased wife and brings her back to the ranch, but his haunting memories of his lost love and her tendency to drift away to other men cause the two to have a tough time at keeping a marriage together.
Wild Is the Wind
1957 · 14 votes
Movie5.0DocumentaryIn 1948, a fan letter arrived for director Roberto Rossellini from Ingrid Bergman, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars; after a meeting in New York, Rossellini invited Bergman to Italy to work on a project. Meanwhile, Anna Magnani, one of Italy’s biggest stars and Rossellini’s longtime lover, was furious. When the Rossellini/Bergman project was announced as a tale set on Stromboli, one of the volcanic Aeolian Islands, Magnani quickly set up her own Aeolian project, financed by Hollywood, to be called Volcano. Italy’s tabloids simply went wild: the prospect of these two great divas battling it out with rival productions was breathlessly followed, especially as it became clear that the Rossellini/Bergman relationship was more than professional. Francesco Patierno has created an engrossing, revealing and highly entertaining chronicle of this cinematic battle royal.
The War of the Volcanoes
2012 · 5 votes
Movie6.9ComedyOn New Year's Eve, a young woman and an out-of-work actor complicate a pickpocket's plans to ply his trade.
Movie7.4DramaA young girl comes to prison and experiences the entire prison subculture. The inmates she befriends vary from big tough dangerous dames to smaller submissive ladies who are totally lost in prison life.
Movie10.0DocumentaryThe fascinating story of a man destined to be only a son of and who sought all his life to become "someone" by getting rid of the overwhelming image of his genius as a father, the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Quand Jean devint Renoir
2017 · 1 votes
Movie7.8DramaFilm 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.
Bellissima
1952 · 260 votes
Movie7.5MusicBonus DVD accompanying the special edition CD "The Movie Album". The DVD contains Barbra performing "Wild Is The Wind" & "I'm In The Mood For Love", with excepts from the films they originate from playing in the background. The Movie Album is the thirtieth studio album by American singer Barbra Streisand, released on October 14, 2003, by Columbia Records. Overall her sixtieth release with her record label, it was executively produced by Streisand and her manager, Jay Landers. A concept album, it contains twelve songs from the singer's favorite films ranging in release from 1935 to 1988.
Barbra Streisand: The Movie Album
2003 · 2 votes
Movie6.9DocumentaryHistoryGirlfriend in a Coma is a documentary that exposes the dire situation of Italian politics and the process of economic and social decline the country has suffered during the last two decades, treating the decline as a warning of what might happen elsewhere in the West. The decline has occurred amid a collapse of moral values and the victory of “Mala Italia” over “Buona Italia”. It has been lauded as being ground-breaking in its creative combination of animation, interviews and hard facts, and has caused fierce controversy in Italy.
Girlfriend in a Coma
2012 · 20 votes
Movie6.6DramaHistoryRome, 1870. Opponents of the church power are being sent to prison. Some of the exhausted prisoners are asking for the mercy of Pope. Others, like Augusto Parenti, prefer to fight for their rights until the end. His wife, Teresa is a simple woman, who gets involved with the rebels.
Movie10.0DramaHistoryItalian version of 'Princess Tarakanova'. A film about the story of princess Élisabeth Tarakanova.
Movie7.3DocumentaryHistoryCinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The film city was solemnly inaugurated in 1937 by Mussolini. Here, propaganda films would be produced to strengthen the dictator's position.
Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita
2021 · 6 votes
Movie9.0DocumentaryA documentary about the Italian cinema as art form and industry.
Series3
TV7.0FamilyComedyFour panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, their identity - by asking only "yes" or "no" questions.
What's My Line?
1950 · 29 votes
TV7.1An annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is better known by its nickname Oscar.
The Oscars
1953 · 85 votes
TV8.7DocumentaryFamilyCinépanorama
1956 · 3 votes