Onelio Millenotti

Por conta do falecimento da mãe, três irmãos voltam à fazenda da família, no sul da Itália. Raffaele (Philippe Noiret), que vive em Roma, é um juiz às voltas com um caso de assassinato político, Rocco (Vittorio Mezzogiorno) é conselheiro de menores infratores em Nápoles e Nicola (Michele Placido) é operário em Turim. Reunidos após um longo período de afastamento, os três relembram o passado e projetam o futuro.

Rome, 1880. Gregorio Ferramonti (Anthony Quinn) has decided to close his bakery, the family business. Then he tells his sons Pippo (Gigi Proietti), Mario (Fabio Testi) and Teta that they will have to fend for themselves. But Irene (Dominique Sanda), the wife of Pippo, a beautiful, calculating and ambitious young woman, wants to take over the inheritance. Acting on intelligence, weighing every step and its consequences, she manages to convince the brothers that they must prevent at all costs that his father falls in love again to avoid the risk of losing their inheritance.

In the decadent Roaring Twenties, a beautiful woman engages in affairs with two men, playing them against each other.

Based on a true incident, this tells the story of a troubled young man who kills his sister's reactionary, violent and abusive husband and is eventually arrested for the murder. However, the dead husband happened to be a member of the Italian nobility, and the trial starts to turn into more of a prosecution of the defendant's socialist politics and the activities of his father, a well known liberal social reformer, than the actual crime itself.