In a desolate Western ghost town during the American Civil War, Mexican bandit Tuco Ramirez ("The Ugly") narrowly escapes three bounty hunters, killing two and wounding a third, Elam.
In 1939 Italy, Guido Orefice is a young Jewish man who is leaving his old life and going to work in the city where his uncle lives. Guido is comical and sharp, making the best from each situation he encounters. From the start he falls in love with a girl Dora. Later he sees her again in the city where she is a teacher. Dora is set to be engaged to a rich but arrogant man. He is a local government official with whom Guido has run-ins from the beginning. Guido is still in love with Dora and performs many stunts in order to see her. Guido sets up many "coincidental" incidents to show his interest. Finally Dora sees Guido's affection and promise and gives in against her better judgement. He steals her from her engagement party on a horse, humiliating her fiancé and mother. Soon they are married and have a son, Giosuè.
In Rome, in the 1980s, famous Italian film director Salvatore Di Vita returns home late one evening, where his girlfriend sleepily tells him that his mother called to say someone named Alfredo has died. Salvatore obviously shies from committed relationships and has not been to his home village of Giancaldo, Sicily in 30 years. As his girlfriend asks him who Alfredo is, Salvatore flashes back to his childhood.
The Best of Youth is a family saga set in Italy from 1966 through 2003. It chronicles the life of an Italian family, the Caratis, but focuses primarily on two brothers, Matteo (Alessio Boni) and Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio), documenting their journey from the prime of their wild youth in the mid-1960s counterculture, to parenthood and retirement in the early 2000s. The film aims to show the interaction of the personal and the political, the ways in which small events may become turning points in the important choices made by individuals.
In post-World War II Val Melaina neighbourhood of Rome, Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) is desperate for work to support his wife Maria (Lianella Carell), his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola), and his small baby. He is offered a position posting advertising bills, but tells Maria that he cannot accept because the job requires a bicycle. Maria resolutely strips the bed of her dowry bedsheets—prized possessions for a poor family—and takes them to the pawn shop, where they bring enough to redeem Antonio's pawned Fides brand bicycle.
It's a hazy, dreamy, sun-baked and seemingly empty Rome on an August morning. A young, timid law student, Roberto (Trintignant), gazing out his window, is asked for trivial favor by a 40-ish man named Bruno (Gassman), who is passing on the street below at the wheel of a convertible Lancia Aurelia: Could he please make a phone call for him?
The Man with No Name—"Monco"/"Manco"— and Colonel Douglas Mortimer—the "Man in Black"—are two bounty hunters in pursuit of "El Indio," one of the most wanted fugitives in the Wild West, and his gang. El Indio is ruthless, clever, and brutal. He has a musical pocketwatch that he plays before engaging in gun duels: "When the chimes finish, begin," he says. Flashbacks reveal that El Indio took the watch from a young woman whom El Indio found with her lover (in Joe Millard's novelization of the film, her newly wed husband), killed him, and raped her; she killed herself while being raped. There is a photograph of the woman inside the cover of the watch; it was a gift from her lover (in the novelization, it was a wedding gift from her brother).
Frenchmen Mario and Jo, Dutchman Bimba and Italian Luigi are stuck in the isolated Southern Mexican town of Las Piedras. Surrounded by desert, the town is linked to the outside world only by a small airport, but the airfare is beyond the means of the men. There is little opportunity for employment aside from the American corporation that dominates the town, Southern Oil Company (SOC), which operates the nearby oil fields and owns a walled compound within the town. SOC is suspected of unethical practices such as exploiting local workers and taking the law into its own hands, but the townspeople's dependence upon it is such that they suffer in silence.
Police disperse an organized street demonstration of elderly men demanding a raise in their meager pensions. One of the marchers is Umberto D. Ferrari, a retired government worker.
Oreste Jacovacci from Rome and Giovanni Busacca from Milan meet each other during the call to arms at the start of World War I. Although completely different in character, they are united in their lack of idealism and their desire to avoid any danger and get out of the war unscathed. They and a varied group of civilians and fellow soldiers (including the prostitute Costantina, played by Silvana Mangano) go through many ups and downs during their training, battles and rare moments of leave. They are considered "inefficient" due to their limited military valour and so are made message-runners to the staff, a very dangerous job. Having succeeded in their mission, a sudden change in which side hold which trench leaves them in enemy territory, where they are captured by the Austrians wearing Austrian uniforms they had found in a barn.
On May 8, 1938, the day Hitler visited Mussolini in Rome, Antonietta, a native and sentimental homemaker (Loren) stays home doing her usual domestic tasks, while her fascist husband and her six spoilt children take to the streets to follow the parade. The building is empty except for a neighbor across the complex (Mastroianni), a charming man named Gabriele. He is a radio broadcaster who has been dismissed from his job and is about to be deported to Sardinia because of his anti-fascist stance and his homosexuality. They meet by chance and began to talk. Antonietta is surprised by his opinions and, unaware of his sexual orientation, flirts with him.
Dans une école de la périphérie romaine, un jeune enseignant inexpérimenté donnant ses cours dans une classe à moitié vide décide d'affronter le problème de l’absentéisme en allant à la recherche dans le quartier des enfants qui « sèchent » les cours. Cette nouvelle façon de procéder et les dialogues qui s'en suivent aboutissent à la création d'un enrichissement réciproque entre les jeunes élèves et le maître (Bruno Cirino) lequel aux yeux des téléspectateurs représente la personne qui met en pratique des idées prêchées mais jamais appliquées.
In the first part (shot in black-and-white) the friends Gianni (Gassman), Antonio (Manfredi) and Nicola (Satta Flores) are partisans who fight for the liberation of Italy from the yoke of Nazi occupation and the fascist collaborationists aiding in it. After the end of World War II, the three go for different lives: Nicola in Nocera Inferiore (southern Italy), Antonio in Rome and Gianni in Pavia.
A recently promoted police inspector (Gian Maria Volonté) kills his mistress (Florinda Bolkan), and then covers up his involvement in the crime. He insinuates himself into the investigation, planting clues to steer his subordinate officers toward a series of other suspects, including the woman's gay husband and a student radical. He then exonerates the other suspects and leads the investigators toward him, in order to prove that he is "above suspicion" and can get away with anything, even while being investigated. In the end, he confesses to the crime in front of his superiors - who refuse to believe him. Sure that he is safe, he recants his confession, and receives the approval of the police commissioner.
The story is told in medias res as a series of flashbacks. Max Tooney, a musician, enters a secondhand music shop just before closing time, broke and badly in need of money. He has only a Conn trumpet, which he sells for less than he had hoped. Clearly torn at parting from his prized possession, he asks to play it one last time. The shopkeeper agrees, and as the musician plays, the shopkeeper immediately recognizes the song from a broken record matrix he found inside a recently acquired secondhand piano. He asks who the piece is by, and Max tells him the story of 1900.