Gianfranco Barra Movies

German filmmaker Tom Tykwer helmed this feature, which was adapted from a screenplay co-authored by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski. Philippa (Cate Blanchett) is a British schoolteacher living in Italy, whose husband fell victim to a drug overdose, as have several of her students. Marco Vendice (Stefano Santospago) is a powerful local drug dealer who sold the dope which killed Philippa's husband, as well as a number of neighborhood teens. Disgusted with the inability of the police to bring Vendice to justice, Philippa takes the law into her own hands, planting a bomb which is intended to kill the dealer. However, Philippa's plan goes awry, and instead the bomb kills four innocent bystanders. Philippa is arrested and brought before the police for questioning, not knowing that the interrogating officer in charge of the case, Pini (Mattia Sbragia), is one of Vendice's secret business associates. More comfortable with English than Italian, Philippa requests a translator, and multilingual officer Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi) is brought in to serve as interpreter. Filippo finds himself falling in love with Philippa, and with his help she's able to escape and go into hiding; however, despite her deep regrets about the loss of four lives in the bombing, she is still bound and determined to see Vendice dead. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A woman throws caution to the wind in the pursuit of the man of her dreams -- whom she's never met -- in this romantic comedy. Eleven-year-old Faith (Tammy Minoff) and her cousin Kate (Jessica Hertel) are playing with a Ouiji Board when Faith asks who she will marry -- the magic oracle answers "DAMON BRADLEY," and Faith is convinced that she will one day meet this ideal love. Fifteen years later, Faith (Marisa Tomei) has yet to meet her perfect man and has settled for Dwayne (John Benjamin Hickey), a sweet but boring foot doctor whom she's engaged to marry, with Kate (Bonnie Hunt) helping her plan the festivities. The day before the ceremony, Faith gets a call from one of the groom's friends, who won't be able to attend because he's travelling to Italy instead -- and his name is Damon Bradley. Convinced that fate is trying to tell her something, Faith hops on the next flight to Venice, where she searches for the elusive Damon, and along the way meets the charming Peter Wright (Robert Downey, Jr.). This was Tomei and Downey's second romantic pairing, following their roles in the biopic Chaplin. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Originally titled La Corsa Dell'Innocente, this Italian drama focuses on that country's ongoing wave of kidnappings. The early scenes focus on a large, outwardly normal Italian family who happen to make their living by abducting wealthy children and holding them for ransom. When the family is wiped out by a rival gang, only 10-year-old Vito (Manuel Coalo) survives. Any other child would go to the police at this point, but Vito has been raised never to trust the police -- or anyone else, for that matter. There is an abundance of dramatic irony in store for the audience when the fleeing Vito is sheltered by the affluent Rienzi family, whose own child has recently been kidnapped. It soon becomes clear that Vito is simply not cut from his family's criminal cloth, and the decisions he makes show a clear sense of ethics and a determination to set right the vicious actions of his family. This marvelously multitextured film represented the directorial debut of Carlo Carlei. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In 1980, an Italian airliner was shot down accidentally by a poorly targeted NATO missile. At the request of Western governments, the Italian government covered up the incident. The persistence of the reporter Andrea Purgatori broke through the wall of silence surrounding the incident and enabled the processes of democracy, however flawed, to work freely once more. This political thriller is based on that incident and follows the reporter in his quest to piece together the unwelcome information and get this story out to the public. This movie was so popular that its title became a byword in modern Italian: now, whenever the truth is obviously being hidden, it is spoken of as being guarded by Il Muro di Gomma, a rubber wall. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this lusty romantic adventure, a young wanderer returns to his Venice home and discovers that his wealthy father has squandered the family fortune on gambling and is deeply indebted to a cruel countess from Germany. When she sees the young man, she decides she wants him and decides to make one final wager with his father with the young man as the stakes. The father is unable to resist and promptly loses, causing the hapless lad to flee the terrifying Teutonic tart and take up with a beautiful runaway. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Banana Joe (Bud Spencer) lives in paradisiacal bliss in a tropical village that is untainted by hard-nosed corporate and bureaucratic types, or by corruption, drugs, gangs, and other ills of modern society. When Banana Joe takes his banana boat to the trading post, he is informed he needs a permit in order to operate the boat. Quite willing to comply with this seemingly simple formality, he treks off to the big city to find this important piece of paper. On his way to obtaining the permit, he runs into television for the first time, crooks as well, and a pretty nifty nightclub singer who greatly opens up his limited knowledge of feminine charms. After more than one contretemps, in which he proves his strength and moral fiber, Banana Joe gets the permit and heads back to the village -- only to find that a tacky gambling casino has been set up in his absence. It looks like he has his work cut out for him again, as his shackles rise at this insult to his idyllic home and he gears up for battle. A toe-tapping tropical rhythm lightens the action in the film, aimed for the younger set rather than their parents. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

After inheriting a faucet factory, Gianluca (Renato Pozzetto) does not have the skills to manage his workers. He is lucky he has the one-man sex machine Luigi (Teo Tocoli) around to show him how to do things. Indeed, so well does he learn his lessons that he leaves the factory behind in favor of wine, women and song. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A hard-working Sicilian heads for Switzerland in search of a better life in this gentle, sweet-sour Italian comedy. Despite the poor fellow's best efforts to fit in with his neighbors, he never quite seems to make it. Of course his tragedy is the audience's delight. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This enchanting yet dark romantic comedy stars Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills as a pair of mismatched lovers helplessly drawn into a series of seemingly hopeless but humorous situations as in Lemmon's The Out-of -Towners two years earlier. Lemmon is Wendell Armbruster Jr., an overbearing American business tycoon forced to travel to the beautiful Italian island of Ischia to claim the body of his recently departed father. What begins with a rather elementary premise evolves into a succession of somber twists and turns, as Armbruster meets Pamela Piggott (Mills), the daughter of his father's mistress, who, Lemmon is appalled to learn, died alongside Armbruster Sr., while zipping through the Italian countryside in his sportscar. Even worse, the family who owns the vineyard that his father's car crashed into has stolen the bodies in exchange for damages. Although plagued with a plethora of such problems, as well as an inability to enjoy life (and the ulcers to prove it), Wendell eventually falls in love with Pamela, almost exactly as his father did with her mother. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi