Roberto Remigio Benigni is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director. He gained international recognition for writing, directing and starring in the Holocaust comedy-drama film Life Is Beautiful (1997), for which he received the Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best International Feature Film. Benigni was the first actor to win the Best Actor Academy Award for a non–English language performance.
Eraclio Petri, commonly known as Elio Petri, was an Italian film and theatre director, screenwriter and film critic. The Museum of Modern Art described him as "one of the preeminent political and social satirists of 1960s and early 1970s Italian cinema". His film Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, and his subsequent film The Working Class Goes to Heaven received the Palme d'Or at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.
Claudio Fragasso is a film director and screenwriter. Fragasso first attempted to make art films in the early 1970s, then became a screenwriter in the Italian film industry in the mid-1970s. Fragasso met director Bruno Mattei, which led to a ten-year partnership from 1980 to 1990 during which the two worked together closely on films, with Fragasso's contributions often going uncredited. Fragasso's wife Rossella Drudi was also a screenwriter and collaborated with him on a number of projects. Fragasso would later go on to write and direct his own films in the 1980s, including Monster Dog with rock musician Alice Cooper and After Death. Fragasso directed Troll 2 in 1989, which was later the topic of Best Worst Movie, a documentary film that discussed Troll 2's fandom.
Poliziotteschi constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as polizieschi all'italiana, Italo-crime, spaghetti crime films, or simply Italian crime films. Influenced primarily by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films, poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy known as Years of Lead and amidst increasing Italian crime rates. The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases, vigilantism, heists, gunfights, and corruption up to the highest levels. The protagonists were generally tough working class loners, willing to act outside a corrupt or overly bureaucratic system.
La Notte is a 1961 drama film co-written and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau and Monica Vitti. Filmed on location in Milan, the film depicts a single day and night in the lives of a disillusioned novelist (Mastroianni) and his alienated wife (Moreau) as they move through various social circles. The film continues Antonioni's tradition of abandoning traditional storytelling in favor of visual composition, atmosphere, and mood.
Enrico Maria Salerno was an Italian actor, voice actor and film director. He was also the voice of Clint Eastwood in the Italian version of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy films, and the voice of Christ in The Gospel According to St. Matthew directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Franco Fabrizi was an Italian actor.
Silvio Orlando is an Italian actor.
Andrea Checchi was a prolific Italian film actor.
The Italian Connection is a 1972 noir-thriller film directed and co-written by Fernando Di Leo; starring Mario Adorf, Henry Silva, Woody Strode, Adolfo Celi, Luciana Paluzzi, Francesca Romana Coluzzi, Sylva Koscina, and Cyril Cusack.
Valerio Mastandrea is an Italian film, stage and television actor.
The Ghost Train is a 1931 British comedy thriller film directed by Walter Forde and starring Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtneidge and Ann Todd. It is based on the play The Ghost Train by Arnold Ridley. The film's art direction was by Walter Murton.
L'iguana dalla lingua di fuoco is a 1971 giallo film. It is directed by Riccardo Freda, who was unhappy with the film and had his name replaced with the pseudonym "Willy Pareto".
Puerto Escondido is a 1992 Italian comedy film directed by Gabriele Salvatores. For this film Diego Abatantuono and Renato Carpentieri were awarded with Silver Ribbons for best actor and best supporting actor.
The Killers Are Our Guests is a 1974 Italian crime-thriller film directed by Vincenzo Rigo.
Gino Pernice was an Italian stage, television and film actor.
Alex Infascelli is an Italian director, screenwriter and producer.
Kamikazen: Last Night in Milan is a 1987 Italian comedy film written and directed by Gabriele Salvatores and starring Silvio Orlando, Paolo Rossi, Antonio Catania and Claudio Bisio.
Massimo Felisatti was an Italian novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and director.
Scuola di ladri - Parte seconda is a 1987 Italian comedy film directed by Neri Parenti starring Enrico Maria Salerno, who reprised his role of thief Aliprando, with Paolo Villaggio and Massimo Boldi. It is the sequel to the 1986 film Scuola di ladri.
