The best Massimo Popolizio’s drama movies

Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

Accio and Manrico are working class brothers who live in Italy in the 1960s. While his brother becomes drawn into left-wing politics, Accio, the hotheaded younger brother, is taken under the wing of a market trader and while under his influence, joins the Fascist party. Accio ("Bully") is a nickname he is proud of because it makes him seem tough. Manrico and their sister Violetta are alarmed to hear their brother listening to Benito Mussolini's speeches in his room. Manrico often physically torments his brother, including stuffing his head in the barrel under the drain pipe of their house.

Italy, early '90s. Calm, clever and inscrutable, politician Giulio Andreotti has been synonymous with power for decades. He has survived everything: electoral battles, terrorist massacres, loss of friends, slanderous accusations; but now certain repentant mobsters implicate him in the crimes of Cosa Nostra.

After serving prison time for a juvenile offense, Freddo gathers his old buddies Libano and Dandi and embarks on a crime spree that makes the trio the most powerful gangsters in Rome. Libano loves their new status, and seeks to spread their influence throughout the underworld, while the other two pursue more fleshly desires. For decades, their gang perpetrates extravagant crimes, until paranoia threatens to split the friends apart.

This is the story of two completely opposite households: the Pavone are intellectual and bourgeois, the Vismara are proletarian and fascists. They are two tribes sharing the same jungle: Rome. A trivial accident brings these two poles together. The madness of a 25-year old youth will set them on a collision course, discovering the cards to reveal that everyone has a secret. People are never what they seem – but we are all predators in the end.

Mussolini reappears in Rome 72 years after his death, finding a Country still full of problems like racism and hate for politicians. Misguised for an actor, he sides with a young filmmaker and starts traveling along Italy to reconquer it.

Christian is an extremely talented as well as unpredictable football player. After his latest screw-up, the president of his team decides to assign him a personal tutor, to help him in controlling his temper. Valerio is a shy and solitary professor, the exact opposite of the champion. Sparks will fly between the two at first, but soon their relationship will change both for the better.

A luminously beautiful biopic of the celebrated eighteenth-century Italian poet, essayist and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi, who created immortal verse whilst struggling with a debilitating illness.

Italian Revolution, 1968. Police officer, Nicolas, wants to become an actor. He goes out in plain clothes and meets Laura who is among students against the government, Vietnam War and who seek sexual freedom. One day, his identity gets exposed and she leaves him.

Arianna is nineteen, but she's still waiting to get her first period. As the summer begins, her parents decide to renew their acquaintance with their country house on Lake Bolsena, where Arianna lived until she was three, and has never been back. As the family settle in for the summer, long-repressed memories start to re-emerge, and Arianna decides to stay on after her parents return to the city.

Salvo was five when his father Vincenzo was arrested, practically before his eyes. Seven years later Salvo lives with his uncles and his cousin a controlled and peaceful existence in the Turin area, but his father returns and claims his son for four days. Vincenzo has to carry an important load to Bari and brings Salvo (nomen est omen) with him as insurance: a child is better than a gun, he says, because his presence in the event of a possible police detention can have a distracting effect . This however is not the only reason why Vincenzo wants Salvo with him, and the "Salv-atore" child will prove to be a potential vehicle of redemption for that messed up father, but not entirely devoid of feelings and attentions.

Renzo Petrucci is forced to leave his job as general manager of a multinational oil company after corruption charges. Convinced that the woman who has taken his place has betrayed him, Renzo takes his revenge by killing her. Reinstated by the Board, he works his way up to the top, driving his company to new heights despite the growing suspicion and mistrust...