Gaetano Badalamenti was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Don Tano Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s. In 1987, he was sentenced in the United States to 45 years in federal prison for being one of the leaders in the so-called "Pizza Connection", a $1.65 billion drug-trafficking ring that used pizzerias as fronts to distribute heroin from 1975 to 1984. He was also sentenced in Italy to life imprisonment in 2002, for the 1978 murder of Peppino Impastato.
Michele Placido is an Italian actor, film director, and screenwriter. He began his career on stage, and first gained mainstream attention through a series of roles in films directed by the likes of Mario Monicelli and Marco Bellocchio, winning the Berlinale's Silver Bear for Best Actor for his performance in the 1979 film Ernesto. He is known internationally for portraying police inspector Corrado Cattani on the crime drama television series La piovra (1984–2001). Placido's directorial debut, Pummarò, was screened Un Certain Regard at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Three of his films have competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. He is a five-time Nastro d'Argento and four-time David di Donatello winner. In 2021, Placido was appointed President of the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara.
In Italian cinema, Giallo is a genre of mystery fiction and thrillers and often contains slasher, crime fiction, psychological thriller, psychological horror, sexploitation, and, less frequently, supernatural horror elements.
Adolfo Celi was an Italian film actor and director. Born in Curcuraci, Messina, Sicily, Celi appeared in nearly 100 films, specialising in international villains. Although a prominent actor in Italian cinema and famed for many roles, he is best remembered internationally for his portrayal of Emilio Largo in the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball. Celi later spoofed his Thunderball role in the film OK Connery opposite Sean Connery's brother, Neil Connery.
Gian Maria Volonté was an Italian actor, widely regarded as one of the best actors in cinema history. Remembered for his versatility as an interpreter, his outspoken left-wing leanings and fiery temper on and off-screen, he is most famous for his roles in four Spaghetti Western films: Ramón Rojo in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and El Indio in Leone's For a Few Dollars More (1965), El Chuncho Munoz in Damiano Damiani's A Bullet for the General (1966) and Professor Brad Fletcher in Sergio Sollima's Face to Face (1967).
Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò is an Italian mobster and member of the Sicilian Mafia in Porta Nuova. He was referred to as the "cassiere di Cosa Nostra" because he was heavily involved in the financial side of organized crime, primarily money laundering. He was arrested in 1985 and charged with ordering the murder of Roberto Calvi – nicknamed "Il banchiere di Dio" – of the Banco Ambrosiano in 1982, but was acquitted in 2007 due to "insufficient evidence" in a surprise verdict. After Calò was sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment as part of the 1986/87 Maxi Trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1989 for organising the 1984 Train 904 bombing. He was given several further life sentences between 1995 and 2002.
Mauro De Mauro was an Italian investigative journalist. Originally a supporter of Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, De Mauro eventually became a journalist with the left-leaning newspaper L'Ora in Palermo. He disappeared in September 1970 and his body has never been found. The disappearance and probable death of the "inconvenient journalist" – as he became known as a result of his investigative reporting – remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in modern Italian history.
Gomorrah is a 2008 Italian crime film directed by Matteo Garrone, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Roberto Saviano, who also collaborated in the screenplay. It deals with the Casalesi clan, a crime syndicate within the Camorra — a traditional criminal organization based in Naples and Caserta, in the southern Italian region of Campania.
Pure as a Lily is a 1976 Italian comedy film directed by Franco Rossi and starring Vittorio Gassman.
The Pizzolungo Bombing was a car-bomb attack on 2 April 1985 undertaken by the Sicilian Mafia in order to kill Carlo Palermo, a magistrate in Pizzolungo, Sicily. Palermo had been investigating an international drug and arms trafficking network in which Italian politicians may have been involved. Palermo was injured in the attack and three passersby were killed: Barbara Rizzo and her young twin sons, Salvatore and Giuseppe Asta.
Renato Baldini was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 87 films between 1950 and 1983. He was born in Rome, Italy.
Neapolitan Mystery is a 1979 Italian mystery film directed by Sergio Corbucci. The film is also known as Atrocious Tales of Love and Death.
Salvatore "Turi" Ferro was an Italian film, television and stage actor. He is considered the most important actor in the Sicilian theatre post-World War II era.
Salvatore Riina, called Totò 'u Curtu, was an Italian mobster and chief of the Sicilian Mafia, known for a ruthless murder campaign that reached a peak in the early 1990s with the assassinations of Antimafia Commission prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, resulting in widespread public outcry and a major crackdown by the authorities. He was also known by the nicknames la belva and il capo dei capi.
La Banda della Comasina is the name which the Italian media used to describe a criminal group active in the 1970s in robberies, kidnappings and weapons trafficking in the northern area of Milan: the Comasina. The area of action included the control of entire neighborhoods in Milan, with the presence of roadblocks controlled by the gang's members in which policemen were robbed and mocked.
Andrea Lehotská is a Slovak-Italian television hostess, actress and model.
Amore che vieni, amore che vai is a 2008 Italian crime-drama film directed by Daniele Costantini. It is based on the novel Un destino ridicolo by Fabrizio De André and Alessandro Gennari.
Giulio Regeni was an Italian Cambridge University graduate who was abducted and tortured to death in Egypt. Regeni was a PhD student at Girton College, Cambridge, researching Egypt's independent trade unions, and a former employee of the international consulting firm Oxford Analytica. He grew up in Fiumicello, a former comune in the province of Udine in northeastern Italy.
