Best movies like Fontamara

Widowed shopkeeper Cesira and her 13-year-old daughter Rosetta flee from the allied bombs in Rome during the second World War; they travel to the remote village where Cesira was born. During their journey and in the village and onward, the mother does everything she can to protect Rosetta. Meanwhile, a sensitive young intellectual, Michele, falls in love with Cesira.

Two linen fabric dealers with their shops close to one another, battle against each other for more and more costumers. Umberto constantly loses clients because of the tough competition brought by Leone, who offers the best prices in the neighborhood. But they leave differences aside when the rise of Fascism places Anti-Semitic politics which rigidly control business like the one conducted by the Jewish Leone, and those new regulations are viewed by Umberto as completely unfair. The long rivalry soon becomes a great friendship.

Tommaso Scalia is a man who commits three murders: he kills his superior who sacked him, the man who replaced him and his wife. He wants a quick trial and an early execution, but an earnest, principled assistant judge looks for a way to save the murderer from being shot, because he does not belive in capital punishment.

A background of rising fascism in Venice in 1930s. A music-student, Matthias, mixes with the town's bourgeoisie and falls in love with a mature teacher, Carla, the mother of his friend Renato, and then with his young colleague, Elena.

In this satire inspired by Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector (aka The Inspector General) and transported to fascist era Italy, the (supposed) incognito visit of a Roman fascist official to a tiny country town shakes deeply the ruling class and their lack of integrity.

When her social-climbing father is relocated from small-town North to his native Rome, 12-year-old Caterina enrolls to his old school, finding herself in an completely different environment where students rigidly divide themselves in subcultures based on social class and their parents' political affiliation.

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation.

An old prince lives in his ancient palace in Rome together with the ghosts of his ancestors. For years he has proudly rejected huge offers by a real estate group seeking to buy the palace and build a department store in its place, but when he suddenly dies his nephew signs the deal. The palace seems lost, but the ghosts forge a plan to save it from destruction.

Palermo, Sicily, November 1925. Cesare Mori, the new prefect of the city, soon to be known as the Iron Prefect, begins a ruthless war against the Mafia, a sinister organization that has subjugated the island for centuries, something that the dictator Benito Mussolini and the fascist authorities can no longer allow.

Set in Fascist Italy before the outbreak of World War II, the story centers on Tunin, a farmer turned anarchist who stays in a brothel while preparing to kill Benito Mussolini. There he falls in love with one of the whores.

In Rome, fascist supporter Emanuele attends a parade commemorating Adolf Hitler's historic meeting with Italian leader Benito Mussolini, leaving his apolitical wife, Antonietta, to tend to household duties. Antonietta encounters a man, Gabriele, who appears surprisingly nonplussed by the political event. Over the course of the day, the two forge a close friendship that will forever change their perceptions of life, love and politics.

A young man returns to his countryside hometown to investigate the unclear circumstances behind the death of his father, ostensibly killed by Fascists in 1936, before his birth. As he unravels a web of lies that seems to encompass the whole town, he finds himself entangled in the same web.

7th September 1943. The honest and reliable carabiniere Umberto is sent to escort the flamboyant con man Raoul Nuvolini from Terni to Venice. Umberto's fiancée Luisa follows him against his will.

Northern Italy, Autumn 1944, the last days of World War II. Germans and Italians try to defend the Gothic Line and fight the partisans who support the inexorable advance of the US Army.

Martina lives in the Rome's zoo, because her father is the guardian. She becomes friend with a young Slavic escaped from a gypsy camp. When the police arrives searching for the kid, they run away riding an elephant!

1936. Giovanni Comini, the youngest Federal in Fascist Italy, is summoned to Rome for a delicate mission: to surveil aging national poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, whose increasingly restless behavior Mussolini fears could damage his alliance with Nazi Germany. However, after spending time with D'Annunzio, Comini finds himself torn between loyalty to the Party and his fascination with the poet, who will put his burgeoning career at risk.

March on Rome (Italian: La marcia su Roma) is a 1962 comedy film by Dino Risi with Vittorio Gassman and Ugo Tognazzi, aimed at describing the March on Rome of Benito Mussolini's black shirts from the point of view of two newly recruited, naïve black shirts

Gina and Marco are living in the suburbs of Rome. The two meet on a very special day: their first day at work. They have a future that awaits them and really seems at hand. Gina is about to realize her dream of becoming an actress, while Marco for the first time has found an opportunity that allows him to start dreaming: a job in a car rental company as a driver. They are enabled to know each other since his first duty is to drive Gina to an appointment, and given a delay, they have to share the whole day. This journey will take them from the periphery to the center of the city, will serve both to compare their experiences and think about a future that has already begun...

In this comedy Alberto Sordi plays Rosario Scimoni, known as Sasà, an opportunistic and unscrupulous guy, nephew of the mayor of Catania, and he's always ready to take sides with anyone who can help him. He switches from socialism to fascism; he changes his political faith the same way he changes women. He even tries to found his own party.

Jewish lovers (Rupert Everett, Stefania Sandrelli) and a homosexual doctor (Philippe Noiret) fall to prejudice and scandal in 1938 Italy.

A mental hospital somewhere in Tuscany during the thirties. Far away from fascism, this closed world is rules over by Dr. Bonaccorsi, a passionate benevolent psychiatrist whose dream is to isolate the germ of madness. He is also a very active ladies'man and makes three women benefit from his sexual itch: Francesca the hospital manager's wife, Bianca, his devoted nurse and Carla, a nymphomaniac doctor's wife. His well-ordered universe starts being challenged with the coming of Anna, a trainee psychiatrist, who disapproves of his theory on the origin of madness. Worse, she resists his advances. As Bonaccorsi is more insecure than he looks, what will become of him?

In the Nazi occupied city of Rome, an assault on an SS brigade draws retaliation from the military governship. "Massacre in Rome" is the true story of how this partisan attack led to the mass execution of Italian nationals under the orders of SS-Lieutenant Colonel Kappler.

A penniless countess falls in love with a cad, unaware that he is also involved on the side with her beautiful daughter.

The story of Maria Montessori the most famous pedagogue of the world. She spent all her life to make her "metodo" (method) accepted in the archaic Italian school system, while the rest of the world immediately understand the importance of her theories. She was the first Italian Doctor, a famous feminist, a scientist. Her private life was hit by having an illegitimate son and by the Fascism that didn't want to accept completely her theories.

A man returns to visit his native Sicily after living in New York for a long time. He learns about the Sicilian way of life from stylized conversations with an orange picker, his fellow train passengers, his mother, and a knife-sharpener.

In 1925, young Florentine typographer Mario moves to via del Corno to be near his girlfriend Bianca. Here befriends Maciste, his landlord, and Ugo, anti-fascists both of them. After a resident is beaten by the fascists, Mario meets the wife Milena at the hospital, falling in love with her and leaving Bianca. Maciste is killed, again by fascists, while Ugo is wounded and he seeks shelter in a nearby house. Here he falls in love with Gesuina and the two marry. Milena's husband dies, but she and Mario part ways. Later, Mario is arrested by the police.

In Nazi-occupied Rome, a beautiful bootlegger, to the chagrin of her lover, gives sanctuary to three escaped POWs: an American pilot, a Russian sergeant and a British major.

'Dalla nube alla resistenza (From the Cloud to the Resistance ) (1978), based on two works by Cesare Pavese, falls into the category of History Lessons and Too Early, Too Late as well. It, too, has two parts—a twentieth-century text and a text regarding the myths of antiquity, each set in the appropriate landscape. Pavese's The Moon and the Bonfires looks back on the violent deaths of Italian anti-Fascist resistance fighters; Dialogues with Leucò is a series of dialogues between heroes and gods, connecting myth and history and returning to an ambiguous stage in the creation of distinctions, such as that between animal and human, which are fundamental to grammar and language itself. Such a juxtaposition of political engagement with profoundly contemplative issues such as myth, nature, and meaning points to the characters of Empedocles and Antigone in the Hölderlin films.' (From "Landscapes of resistance. The German Films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub" by Barton Byg)

How the Italian Fascist Party managed to turn the physical elimination of a political enemy into a test of strength fundamental for the ascent into the totalitarian regime.

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.

September the 8th 1943, Rome, day of the armistice. Danilo escapes the fascist enlist, while Michele succeeded to leave his administration moving from Rome. On the way to come back Rome the two meets Gino and all together will try to pass trough the Gothic Line.

In Milan, in the winter of 1944, the ruthless Cane Nero leads the fascists against the partisans. Enne 2, one of the leading figures of the C.N.L., meets Berta, whom he loved three years ago, but Berta refuses to leave her husband for him. Enne 2 is pursued by the fascists of Cane Nero and, instead of running away to Turin, waits for Berta to rejoin him

In 1943, Vincenzio and Maria take their children to his father's Tuscan farm. Vincenzio commutes to Rome where he's a physician and, in the hospital basement, prints an anti-Fascist paper. His brother is in the Resistance; his father supplies food to a local monastery where 12 fugitives hide. All is seen through the eyes of the oldest child, Paulo, who's about 7 and the only lad at school who doesn't wear a Fascist Youth uniform. For Paulo and his siblings, it's great fun playing with their nonno, finding herbs in the fields, watching a maid's tryst with a soldier, teasing a silent monk. Then the war reaches the farm when Italy surrenders and the Germans exact revenge.