Johnny Stecchino (1991)
Sometimes a banana is just a banana!
Genre : Comedy
Runtime : 1H 55M
Director : Roberto Benigni
Writer : Roberto Benigni, Vincenzo Cerami
Synopsis
Good hearted but not very wordly-wise, Dante is happy driving the school bus for a group of mentally handicapped children, while feeling he is somehow missing out on life and love. So he is very excited when after nearly being knocked down by her car he meets Maria, who seems immediately enamoured of him. He is soon invited to her sumptuous Palermo villa, little suspecting that this is part of a plot. He bears an amazing likeness to Maria's stool-pigeon gangster husband and it would be convenient for them if the mobster, in the shape of Dante, was seen to be dead and buried.
Two men answer the call of the ocean in this romantic fantasy-adventure. Jacques and Enzo are a pair of friends who have been close since childhood, and who share a passion for the dangerous sport of free diving. Professional diver Jacques opted to follow in the footsteps of his father, who died at sea when Jacques was a boy; to the bewilderment of scientists, Jacques harbors a remarkable ability to adjust his heart rate and breathing pattern in the water, so that his vital signs more closely resemble that of dolphins than men. As Enzo persuades a reluctant Jacques to compete against him in a free diving contest -- determining who can dive deeper and longer without scuba gear -- Jacques meets Johana, a beautiful insurance investigator from America, and he finds that he must choose between his love for her and his love of the sea.
Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma.
A small-time hood must choose from among love, friendship and the chance to rise within the mob.
Two musicians witness a mob hit and struggle to find a way out of the city before they are found by the gangsters. Their only opportunity is to join an all-girl band as they leave on a tour. To make their getaway they must first disguise themselves as women, then keep their identities secret and deal with the problems this brings - such as an attractive bandmate and a very determined suitor.
In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.
In the midst of trying to legitimize his business dealings in 1979 New York and Italy, aging mafia don, Michael Corleone seeks forgiveness for his sins while taking a young protege under his wing.
When record store owner and compulsive list-compiler Rob Gordon gets dumped by his long-time girlfriend, Laura, because he hasn't changed since they met, he revisits his top five breakups of all time in order to figure out what went wrong. As he examines his failed attempts at romance and happiness, the process finds him being dragged, kicking and screaming, into adulthood.
Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.
In the slums of Rio, two kids' paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and the other a kingpin.
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Clarence marries hooker Alabama, steals cocaine from her pimp, and tries to sell it in Hollywood, while the owners of the coke try to reclaim it.
A Japanese Yakuza gangster’s deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother’s gang.
Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.
Five different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.
A rich woman and a calculating insurance agent plot to kill her unsuspecting husband after he signs a double indemnity policy. Against a backdrop of distinctly Californian settings, the partners in crime plan the perfect murder to collect the insurance, which pays double if the death is accidental.
Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.
As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.
Ash, a handsome, shotgun-toting, chainsaw-armed department store clerk, is time warped backwards into England's Dark Ages, where he romances a beauty and faces legions of the undead.
The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.
A vicious serial sex killer is on the loose, and landscape gardener and shop-window outfitter Loris is the prime suspect, thanks to his unfortunate habit of getting caught in compromising situations (for which there is always a totally innocent explanation that the police fail to spot). Undercover policewoman Jessica is assigned by eccentric police psychologist Taccone to follow Loris and ...
Father Maurice, a priest living in a residential college for priests in Rome, is called out one day to "exorcise" the devil from someone. The devil turns out to be in the form of a fun-loving man called Giuditta. What Father Maurice doesn't know is that this type of devil will turn his life around.
A teacher (Saverio) and a schoolkeeper (Mario) get lost in the Italian countryside. They find themselves in the late 15th century, they met Leonardo da Vinci and try to teach him how to play cards, they try to stop Columbus, they sing beatles's song etc...
Roberto Benigni adapts the classic children's tale by Carlo Collodi for the big-budget family-oriented comedy Pinocchio.
Love and injury in time of war. Attilio de Giovanni teaches poetry in Italy. He has a romantic soul, and women love him. But he is in love with Vittoria, and the love is unrequited. Every night he dreams of marrying her, in his boxer shorts and t-shirt, as Tom Waits sings. Vittoria travels to Iraq with her friend, Fuad, a poet; they are there with the second Gulf War breaks out. Vittoria is injured. Attilio must get to her side, and then, as war rages around him, he must find her the medical care she needs. In war, does love conquer all?
Al Caruso, John Gresco, and Jack Amoruso are three gangsters working for the Genovese family. After botching yet another hit and discovering that their boss wants to get rid of them, the trio comes up with a plan to sell him to the FBI. However, Al's short-term memory loss could be a problem...
Three Italians travel to their hometown to vote for elections: Pasquale is a Southern immigrant living in Munich who's genuinely happy to come back to Italy, even if just for a few days, but the country he dreams of is far from reality; Furio travels to Rome with his family, but his niggling attitude threatens to push his wife Magda over the edge; young Mimmo is also going to Rome, but the trip is repeatedly interrupted by worries about his grandma's health.
Simple Italian postman learns to love poetry while delivering mail to a famous poet; he uses this to woo local beauty Beatrice.
Fugitive convict Aldo seizes a car, taking policeman Giacomo and civilian Giovanni hostages. While chased by the police all over Italy, they will eventually become friends.
Friends Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo travel from north to south for Giacomo's wedding, carrying a precious item: the father of the bride, a tyrannical rich man who is both their boss and father-in-law (also Aldo and Giovanni married his daughters), has entrusted them with a wooden leg, the work of a famous artist.
Checco, an uneducated but self-satisfied fellow from Milan, who has always dreamed of becoming a police officer, fails his entrance exam for the third time. It must be said that at the oral examination Checco said that the reason why he wanted to join the police was benefits in kind and cronyism! But the young man has connections and he soon finds himself a security agent at the Milan Cathedral. Of course the bumbling idiot proves a living catastrophe! Spotted by Sufien, an Arab terrorist who is preparing an attack against the cathedral, Checco appears as the perfect sucker. To manipulate him, he sends his charming sister Farah to him, with the mission to seduce him...
An aspiring singer from southern Italy who's just been dumped moves north to Milan, where he falls in love and enters a TV singing competition show.
Gaetano, giovane napoletano, decide di lasciare casa, lavoro ed amici, per cercare altri momenti di vita e conoscere altre persone. Arriva a Firenze, a casa della zia. In un ambulatorio, dove capita per caso, conosce Marta e se ne innammora. Dopo una serie di divertenti situazioni (un vecchio amico dalla parlantina inarrestabile arriva da Napoli; la matura zia ed il suo attempato amante; un giovane prete Americano che vuole coinvolgerlo per forza nelle sue visite evangeliche; l'incontro con Riccardino, un giovane frustrato da una madre oppressiva; il padre che aspetta il miracolo della ricrescita di una mano amputata; etc.) Gaetano decide di restare a Firenze e di fare da padre al figlio che Marta aspetta, anche se la ragazza non vuole rivelare con esattezza il nome del padre.
Benito Fornaciari, a pale, devoutly Catholic, Upper Middleclass Italian inherits a minor-league football club from a long-lost uncle. He decides to visit the club to sell it, but the local population has other ideas: through an almost-armed uprising they "force" him not to sell the club but lead it to other glories on the football field.
Meet Claudia: dull Giovanni is married with her, Giacomo is divorced and happy of it (until he meets her), and Aldo... is a taxi driver. At the end, who will have won her heart?
Aspiring actors Aldo, Giovanni, and Giacomo work dead-end jobs while focusing on their passion project: staging an adaptation of 'Cyrano de Bergerac'. However, love for the same woman will end their friendship. Three years later, Giovanni and Giacomo reunite to travel from Milan to Sicily after hearing that Aldo is dying.
Greek Sea, World War II. An Italian ship leaves a handful of soldiers in a little island; their mission is to spot enemy ships and to hold the island in case of attack. The village of the island seems abandoned and there isn't a single enemy in sight, so the soldiers begin to relax a little. Things change when their ship is hit and destroyed by the enemy, and the soldiers find themselves abandoned there.
Four different comedic episodes, framed by the story of a Zen master and his two helpless disciples.
Ugo Fantozzi has been ejected from Heaven and is sent back to Earth for a short period of time until the staff in Heaven can get Fantozzi a place there. Fantozzi goes through a variety of unfortunate experiences, such as rescuing his retro punk granddaughter Uga, and having to pay a vast telephone bill due to frequent chat line conversations. He ends up getting arrested instead of his ex-boss, who was originally charged with corruption. Just as he is about to enjoy the World Cup Final with Italy, he is called back into Heaven. Can he find peace once again?
The everyday life of accountant Levante, his family and the other people of a small town in the Tuscan countryside is taken by storm by the serendipitous arrival of five beautiful flamenco dancers from Spain.