Bitter Rice

Director	Giuseppe De Santis
Year	1949
Country	Italy
Runtime	1h 48m
Language	Italian In Italian with English subtitles
Format	DCP
TMDB	View entry

Synopsis

This is the film that broke Italian Neorealism at the domestic Italian box office and had arthouse patrons lining up around the block in the cosmopolitan centers of the world. The great success was partly because of its depiction of poor but honorable female rice-field workers who become entangled in a criminal plot foisted upon them by a charming hood (Vittorio Gassman). But the main part of the appeal was the up-and-coming actress Silvana Mangano as a worker who is seduced by the easy money and easy virtue of the criminal life.

Listed at AFS

Archived on the AFS site on Fri, Apr 10 2026. These dates are inferred from Wayback Machine captures and may not be accurate.