Best movies like Two Cents Worth of Hope

Raphael, a restaurant mandolin player with a limp, a father to support, and a lot of debt, accepts a job offered by his friend, Giardino, to play a serenade under an apartment window at the behest of a mysterious blonde. As he’s playing, a man high up on a balcony is pushed to his death. Raffaele is compelled to conduct his own investigation and becomes embroiled in a mystery involving a macabre secret...

Assunta and Michele are in love, but others come between them and jealousy arises. Assunta Spina stands out as an early landmark of naturalistic acting and a blueprint for the Italian Neorealist films to come.

Rodrigo, an impoverished Italian nobleman takes a job with a New York antique dealer he met overseas. Swearing off women, Rodrigo focuses on his job. But complications arise when he falls in love with his friend's secretary-- and his friend's wife looks to make a date with him.

Living with her snobby family on the brink of bankruptcy, Anne Elliot is an unconforming woman with modern sensibilities. When Frederick Wentworth - the dashing one she once sent away - crashes back into her life, Anne must choose between putting the past behind her or listening to her heart when it comes to second chances.

The complicated travails of several generations of Italian women provide the basis for this drama that is based on a novel by Susanna Tamaro. It begins with the peaceful death of Olga, the elderly family matriarch. Marta, her granddaughter returns from the US to attend the funeral and once in Olga's villa in Trieste, begins reading her grandmother's diary. Olga's story unfolds via flashback. As a young woman, Oldga had to marry Antonio a man she didn't love. Later she became passionately involved with a handsome doctor at the local spa. He impregnates her and shortly thereafter dies in a terrible car wreck. The result of their love is Illaria, who grows up to be terribly neurotic. She bears Marta and then she too dies in an automobile accident, leaving Marta to be raised by Olga.

Agnese and Stefano are profoundly different. She is only seventeen, lives with her mother – a harsh and devoted woman – is a regular church-goer and is about to take a vow of chastity to last until marriage. He is twenty-five, has a violent temper and a difficult past behind. He works as a warden in a car park that borders a Roma camp. Their unexpected meeting engenders a true sentiment, made of little stolen moments and mutual help.

In the first episode, Quirino tries to conquer co-worker Gabriella. In the second episode, Prof. Beozi ends up in a raid of the police in a local for homosexuals when trying to avoid a scandal. In the third episode, Guglielmo passes all tests in order to become reader of the television news brilliantly, although the commission works with all subtleness's to exclude him.

Vincenzo, a 30 years old apathetic and lazy man who still lives with his mother, has no job and no desire to improve. He meets Anna and fell in love with her but to keep the relationship alive he has to learn to accept more responsibility.

Voting against the Mafia in what he thinks is a secret ballot costs Sicilian laborer Mimi his livelihood. He leaves his wife, flees to Turin and romances a Communist organizer - but he just can’t shake the Mafia. When they lure Mimi back to Sicily with a better job, he must keep his lover – and love child – under wraps. That’s when his wife announces she’s pregnant.

Determined not to turn into her parents, or be drawn into any relationship longer than a one night stand, Zoe constantly struggles with her failing business and love life. Then she falls in love for the first time with Paul. But there's one problem: Paul is married.

Antonio is the humble servant of a rich family governed by the Marquis Gastone. He is a young man madly in love with Lulu, but she betrays him, and he desperately enlist in the foreign legion.

A collection agent arrives in a small town with $1000 for a local farmer. Whilst waiting for the farmer to arrive the money is put in a safe at a hotel for safe keeping. However, it is removed by mistake and solves a number of financial problems before it is returned.

After the matriarch dies, an Italian immigrant family in America disintegrates. The son tries to steal their money, and the father yearns to return to a less stressful existence back in Naples.

The ever-growing popularity of Gina Lollobrigida was a decided box-office asset when the Italian La Provinciale was distributed to the U.S. as The Wayward Wife. Lollobrigida acquits herself quite nicely in the tensely dramatic role of a much-put-upon small-town girl named Cemma. Seduced by a lad who turns out to be a relative, Cemma is tossed out of her home. Seeking security, she impulsively marries bookish science professor Franco Vagnuzzi (Gabriele Ferzetti). Bored by her marriage, Cemma doesn't realize the true value of her loving husband until it's almost too late. The original 118-minute run time was reduced for U.S. release.

Nanninella, a young girl, is exploited and abused by her father, whom she maintains with her waitress salary. She falls madly in love with Tore, a handsome and upright man, whose friend Carluccio plots to have Nanninella for himself. Based on a popular Neapolitan song, ‘A Santanotte is the earliest extant feature film by Elvira Notari, Italy's first and most prolific female filmmaker.

Thanks to his ability, Danny can draw each of the bandits who robbed the stage coach in which he was traveling with his father, who was killed. When he arrives to the next town he looks for a job helped by the sheriffs` daughter. In the bulletin board there are some posters of people and they offer a dollar reward for providing information about them. After many obstacles, each of the components of the band gradually disappears. Danny believes that only fits the sheriff, but he is in love with his daughter.

The story of a group of Sicilian miners and their families decide to illegally cross the border to France and their hardships.

Karole and Ali love each other and dream of starting a family together. They soon realize it won't be as simple as they'd hoped, and as their enthusiasm falters their love is challenged. In order to overcome the obstacles, they must believe in the power of their desire and support of their loved ones. If they can do that, miracles will happen…

On his death bed in the 1820s, King Ferdinando I of Naples tries to escape the ghosts of his bloody kingship by remembering his younger days, when he was allowed to go hunting and have fun, and inventing love games. Then he was obliged to marry Mary Caroline of Austria, daughter of Empress Mary Theresa, in a political marriage: unexpectedly, they became happy lovers, until court power games divided them, and a different historical season arrived.

A lovely, incisive portrait of adolescents in the crowded San Giovanni quarter of Rome during the last years of WWII.

Ester finds herself sexually attracted to her newly divorced friend Adele. When Ester admits another love to her hot-headed husband, he searches manically for the rival, who he never suspects is a woman.

During a debate in Naples' town hall in the early 1980s, Pasquale Picone, a former steel-worker who has recently lost his job, sets himself on fire in front of the Municipal Council.

Young swain Toto Esposito tries to abduct his beloved to marry her, but he makes a mistake: he kidnaps an ugly woman named Carmela, who loves him--and chases him when he escapes.

A lawyer, married but temporarily alone at home, finds himself in the house a beautiful lady who tries to escape from her jealous husband. Fascinated by the beauty of the unexpected guest, the lawyer is determined to conquer her, in vain. But when the woman leaves, she discovers that she has been stolen some money.

This high-energy three part comedy has a strong undercurrent of melancholy, as it shows three different women coping with difficult situations which are usually sexual in origin, even if the moment of romance is long past. In the first tale, Aurora has gotten used to a cozy, wealthy life, but begins to see her world destroyed when her husband is caught in bed with his secretary. Later, he flees the country to avoid getting arrested for something else he has done. Carmela is just welcoming her wayward son back to their slum home after he has spent a stint in "reform" school. Not only has he just confessed to her that he's gay, but he has become a heroin addict.Finally, Libera works at a newsstand outside of Naples as the sole breadwinner for her family. She is tired of her husband lounging in their house when he is not out tomcatting around with prostitutes, and decides to do something about it. So she secretly has him filmed in bed, and is marketing the tapes at her newsstand.

The second of Castellani's trilogy dealing with the less-than-smooth course of young love in postwar Italy (it was filmed just after Sotto il sole di Roma and just before Two Cents Worth of Hope). Leading man Mario Angelotti, loving not wisely but too well, quickly discovers that the penalty for bigamy is two wives. Between his tempestuous Sicilian bride, played by Elena Varzi and his sedate Milanese missus (Irene Gemma), the poor man barely has time to take a breath.

Demetrio Perez is a tough prosecutor torn between the corruption inherent in his job and the desire to do right by his family. But when opportunity presents itself and his daughter Thea falls in love with a Mafioso’s son, Perez has to cut through the morality of his law-abiding roots and become as dirty as the dangerous criminals he represents.

A man is broken hearted at the loss of his lover, then later visits the same pain on the next woman with whom he becomes involved.

Set in Genoa, the film concerns the financial struggles and emotional strain that occur after Michele loses his job. He and his wife Elsa are forced to give up their affluent lifestyle and cope with the tensions of moving into a smaller home, finding new work, and making sacrifices.

A young student of an upper-class background who is surrounded by classmates that are of working-class backgrounds, after a novel in diary format by Enrico Bottini.

Piero C, a successful Turin television host, is dumped by his girlfriend, Beatrice; the abandonment left him in a state of deep depression. to the point he considers to end it all and leave his job. But his friends will try to make him recover through a series of bizarre experiences.

An unworthy nephew, with the help of a girl who seduces the young guardian, robs the aunt of the family jewels. He also manages to put the blame for the theft on the caretaker, engaged to a young woman who is actually the woman's natural daughter. The thief also tries to blackmail his aunt by threatening to reveal the truth after so many years, but a commissioner manages to prove the innocence of the suspect and the guilt of his nephew.

Naples 1821. Alphonse, a young poet belonging to a noble French family, is caught by a storm at sea. Fortunately the boat manage to reach the shores of Procida, where Alphonse is welcomed by the family of Andrea. Here he meets the beautiful Graziella.

Benvenuto Cellini knows no obstacles when it comes to creating a work of art or conquering the heart of a woman.