What is the best Italian movie of all time?

From neorealist masterpieces and spaghetti westerns to giallo horror and Cannes-winning art films, Italy's cinema spans a century of bold, genre-defying work. Which is the greatest?

1. 1
   The Battle of Algiers

   Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 quasi-documentary recreation of the Algerian independence struggle, shot with newsreel-like immediacy and still the definitive film on urban guerrilla warfare.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Suspiria

   Dario Argento's 1977 Technicolor horror fantasia about an American ballet student who discovers the dark supernatural secret behind a prestigious Munich dance academy.
   880pts
3. 3
   8½

   Federico Fellini's 1963 metafictional masterpiece about a film director's creative block and memories, a dazzling meditation on art, desire, and the unconscious mind.
   789pts
4. 4
   Rome, Open City

   Roberto Rossellini's 1945 Neorealist landmark filmed in the streets of liberated Rome, depicting the real brutality of Nazi occupation — a founding document of world cinema.
   789pts
5. 5
   Bicycle Thieves

   Vittorio De Sica's 1948 Neorealist heartbreaker about a poor Roman worker and his son searching the city for the stolen bicycle he needs to keep his job — a film of unbearable humanity.
   710pts
6. 6
   Salvatore Giuliano

   Francesco Rosi's 1962 elliptical political docudrama reconstructing the life and death of the Sicilian bandit Giuliano through fragmented testimonies and official corruption.
   609pts
7. 7
   La Dolce Vita

   Fellini's 1960 kaleidoscopic odyssey through Rome's jet-set demimonde with Marcello Mastroianni as a gossip journalist, giving the world the Trevi Fountain scene and the word 'paparazzi'.
   474pts
8. 8
   Umberto D.

   Vittorio De Sica's 1952 Neorealist tearjerker following an elderly pensioner and his dog struggling to survive on the streets of Rome on a meagre government pension.
   284pts
9. 9
   Amarcord

   Fellini's affectionate yet barbed 1973 memory-collage of life in a small Adriatic town under Fascism, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
   284pts
10. 10
    The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

    Sergio Leone's 1966 epic Spaghetti Western pitting three gunslingers against each other in a deadly hunt for buried Confederate gold, with Ennio Morricone's iconic score.
    1pts
11. 11
    Once Upon a Time in America

    Leone's operatic 1984 gangster elegy tracing the rise and tragic betrayal of Jewish New York gangsters across five decades, Morricone's most devastating score accompanying every frame.
    1pts
12. 12
    Cinema Paradiso

    Giuseppe Tornatore's 1988 nostalgic love letter to cinema and to childhood, following the friendship between a boy and the local projectionist in a Sicilian village.
    1pts
13. 13
    The Leopard

    Luchino Visconti's magnificent 1963 adaptation of Lampedusa's novel about an aristocratic Sicilian family navigating Italy's Risorgimento unification, a sumptuous meditation on decline.
    1pts
14. 14
    Il Sorpasso

    Dino Risi's 1962 road-movie satire following a blowhard extrovert and a shy law student tearing down the sun-drenched Via Aurelia, a bittersweet study of Italian postwar euphoria.
    1pts
15. 15
    Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

    Elio Petri's 1970 Kafkaesque thriller about a powerful police chief who murders his mistress and dares the law to catch him, a razor-sharp indictment of authoritarian impunity.
    1pts