Pier Paolo Pasolini Filmography

Born:: March 5, 1922 in Bologna, Italy
Occupation:: Actor, Director, Screenwriter
Biography:: Pier Paolo Pasolini was among the most controversial and provocative filmmakers ever to impact the international cinema community. Emerging during the 1960s, Pasolini broke from his New Wave-inspired peers, drawing influence for his work not from other cinematic sources but from art, literature...Read More

Sort By:
Title
Release Date

La Rabbia di Pasolini

Crew: Director, Editor

Actors: Giuseppe Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini

Synopsis: With his 1963 Rabbia (Rage), Pier Paolo Pasolini sought to construct an essay film out of found footage, that would enable him to impose his extreme Marxist ideological framework on some seminal events of the 20th century, thus telling history "his way." Using clips of such subjects as the Congo Read More

9/5/08
Pasolini Prossimo Nostro

Actors: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Synopsis: In 1975, the controversial Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini crafted what became his swan song - the stomach-turning sadomasochistic drama Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom. The film contemporizes the Marquis de Sade's 1784 novel by placing it in the context of post-WWII fascist Italy, amid an Read More

2006
Bellissimo: Images of the Italian Cinema

Synopsis: Survey of the history of Italian cinema, featuring clips from such classics as "Open City," "8-1/2," and "Seven Beauties," and interviews with illustrious stars and filmmakers, including Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Toto, Monica Vitti, Anna Magnani, Vittorio DeSica, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini Read More

9/13/86
Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die

Synopsis: Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die is a naked-truth documentary on the life and work of Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975). Using still pictures, excerpts from such Pasolini efforts as The Gospel According to St. Mathew, and extensive interviews, director Philo Bregstein charts Read More

1981
Castelporziano, Ostia Dei Poeti

Crew: Featured Music

Synopsis: This documentary was shot at a three-day celebration of poetry (a "Poets' Festival") at the beach of Castelporziano near Rome in the summer of 1979. Pier Paolo Pasolini was killed on this beach a few years earlier and his murder is commented on by Evgeny Yetushenko at the beginning of the Read More

1981
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle, Aldo Valletti, Caterina Boratto, Elsa De Giorgi, Hélène Surgère, Sonia Saviange

Synopsis: The final work of notorious Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, this film updates the Marquis de Sade's most extreme novel to fascist Italy in the final days of WW II. Dispensing with the novel's meditations on sexual liberation and the search for truth, Pasolini presents four decadents who Read More

1/10/76
Appunti Per Un Orestiade Africana

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gato Barbieri, Yvonne Murray

Synopsis: Leave it to iconoclastic Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini to make a feature-length movie out of his production notes! Fascinated by the ancient Greek legend of Orestes, Pasolini travels not to Greece but to Africa. Here he films background footage of tribal customs and rituals, vaguely Read More

11/29/75
The Arabian Nights

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Alberto Argentino, Francesco Paolo Governale, Ninetto Davoli, Franco Merli, Ines Pellegrini, Tessa Bouche

Synopsis: This lush anthology of erotic tales was filmed in four countries (Iran, Nepal, Yemen, and Eritrea) over a period of more than two years. Completing the literary cycle begun by Pier Pasolini in Il Decamerone and I Racconti di Canterbury, this one is perhaps the most controversial of the lot Read More

6/20/74
Storie Scellerate

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Two vagabonds, the "rogues" of the title Roguish Stories, tell each other stories while they squat side-by-side using a cave floor as a toilet. Their tales of jealousy, priests, seductions, murders and multiple castrations are not for the squeamish. The two later kill a man and are caught and Read More

10/12/73
The Canterbury Tales

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Italian director Pier Pasolini tells four of the Chaucer tales in this graphic and satirical picture that chronicles the 14th-century's social, sexual, and religious standards in England. In Pasolini's Trilogy of Life, this second entry follows The Decameron and precedes The Arabian Nights. Read More

9/2/72
The Decameron

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Synopsis: The Decameron was the first of director Pier Paolo Pasolini's "trilogy of life." The film, based on the sexually supercharged tales of Boccaccio, is a patchwork of many of Pasolini's favorite themes. Pasolini himself plays the role of an aspiring fresco painter who is advised that his completed Read More

8/25/71
Ostia

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Laurent Terzieff, Franco Citti, Anita Sanders, Ninetto Davoli

Synopsis: Two anarchistic brothers live by petty thievery and try to recover from their Catholic upbringing. Bandiera (Laurent Terzieff) and Rabbino (Franco Citti) were children when they pushed their drunk of a father out of a window for killing their pet sheep. When a girl is raped by her father, she is Read More

3/11/70
Medea

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Maria Callas, Guiseppe Gentili, Laurent Terzieff, Massimo Girotti, Margarethe Clementi

Synopsis: Put in the coldest possible terms, Medea is the story of a woman who gets sore at her husband and kills her children to get even. Greek opera diva Maria Callas is certainly in her element as Medea in this 1970 film version of the venerable theatrical piece, with Giuseppe Gentili as her husband Read More

12/28/69
Porcile

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Pierre Clémenti, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Alberto Lionello, Ugo Tognazzi, Anne Wiazemsky

Synopsis: Julian (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is the son of German industrialist Klotz (Alberto Lionello) who seeks to go into business with the former Nazi Herdhitze (Ugo Tognazzi). Herdhitze had spent most of World War II collecting human skulls for experiments with brain matter. As a protest, Julian refuses to Read More

8/29/69
Amore e Rabbia

Crew: Director

Actors: Nino Castelnuovo, Ninetto Davoli, Tom Baker

Synopsis: This obscure film is directed by five well-known cinematographers. "Apathy" is directed by Carlo Lizzani and concerns a New York rape victim whose cries for help fall on deaf ears. Bernardo Bertolucci directs "Agony." Members of the Living Theater mime death scenes. In "The Paper Flower Sequence," Read More

1969
Teorema

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Silvana Mangano, Terence Stamp, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky, Laura Betti

Synopsis: Terence Stamp is known only as "The Visitor" in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema. The mysterious stranger insinuates himself into the home of a wealthy Italian family, where he exerts a curious, sensual spirituality over everyone in the household. He then wanders into the nearby village, where he Read More

9/7/68
Capriccio All'italiana

Crew: Director

4/13/68
Oedipus Rex

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Musical Direction/Supervision, Screenwriter

Actors: Silvana Mangano, Franco Citti, Alida Valli, Julian Beck, Carmelo Bene

Synopsis: This updated version of the Greek tragedy from Sophocles bears some slight resemblance to the original mythology. Edipo (Franco Citti) is abandoned by his father after the father receives an oracle telling him he will die at the hands of his own son. Raised by a childless couple, Edipo goes Read More

9/7/67
Requiescant

3/10/67
Le Streghe

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Silvana Mangano, Annie Girardot, Francisco Rabal, Massimo Girotti, Elsa Albani

Synopsis: This Dino De Laurentiis production from 1965 is actually an anthology of five different directors' work, each telling their own stories about witches. The five stories are "The Witch Burned Alive," "Civic Sense," "The Earth As Seen From The Moon," "The Girl From Sicily," and "A Night Like Any Read More

2/22/67
The Hawks and the Sparrows

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Totò, Ninetto Davoli

Synopsis: Originally Uccellacci e Uccellini, The Hawks and the Sparrows was adapted by director Pier Paolo Pasolini from his own novel. Italian comedian Toto plays a dual role, as "himself" and 12th century monk Brother Ciccillo. In modern times, Toto and his son Ninetto Davoli come across a talking crow Read More

5/4/66
Love Meetings

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Director Pier Paolo Pasolini interviews a variety of Italians and asks them questions about love, marriage, infidelity, prostitution and homosexuality. Psychologist Cesare Musatti and writer Alberto Moravia offer their thoughts on the subject in this Italian documentary with English subtitles. Read More

5/5/65
The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Enrique Irazoqui, Margherita Caruso, Susanna Pasolini, Marcello Morante, Mario Socrate

Synopsis: Relating his facts in straight-on documentary fashion, Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1964 Biblical film stars Enrique Irazoqui as Jesus. In it, Christ and his followers are depicted as gentle radicals working against the grain of the unjust Roman power structure. Typically offbeat Pasolini touches include Read More

10/2/64
RoGoPaG

Crew: Director

Actors: Alexandra Stewart, Rosanna Schiaffino, Jean-Marc Bory, Jean-Andre Fieschi, Orson Welles, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Delahaye

Synopsis: RoGoPaG is an omnibus of short films by Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ugo Gregoretti and Jean- Luc Godard. Each episode is introduced by a quotation from the Bible which the episode illustrates with a fiction of contemporary life. Rossellini's film, "Illibatezza" ("Virginity"), is the Read More

2/19/63
La Rabbia

Crew: Director

1963
La Commare Secca

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Gabriella Giorgetti, Giancarlo de Rosa, Vincenzo Ciccora, Alvaro D'Ercola, Romano Labate

Synopsis: A very young Bernardo Bertolucci already shows his talent in this bleak, 94-minute murder mystery, told in an interesting series of flashbacks. A Roman prostitute has been brutally murdered in a park near the Tiber River and in order to forward their investigation, the police corner a handful of Read More

10/19/62
Mamma Roma

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Anna Magnani, Ettore Garofalo, Franco Citti, Silvana Corsini, Luisa Loiano

Synopsis: Anna Magnani stars as Mamma Roma, a rural Italian hooker trying to create a new life for herself. This proves impossible when the past keeps rearing its ugly head in the form of Mamma Rosa's previous "johns." She returns to her old profession, whereupon her son Ettore Garofalo becomes a thief and Read More

9/22/62
La Ricotta

Crew: Director

1962
Accattone

Crew: Book Author, Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Franco Citti, Silvana Corsini, Franca Pasut, Paolo Guidi, Adele Cambria

Synopsis: Accattone , Pier Paolo Pasolini's first feature, is also his first semidocumentary study of "the little homelands": the small, often squalid cultural pockets in the remotest provinces of Italy. Using nonprofessional actors for his leading characters, Pasolini concentrates on Franco Citti, a rural Read More

11/22/61
La Ragazza in Vetrina

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lino Ventura, Marina Vlady, Bernard Fresson, Magali Noël

Synopsis: Essentially a romantic drama set in Amsterdam, this standard tale starts out in a mining area in Holland where conditions are about as rough as they get. Two of the miners, Italians Federico (Lino Ventura) and Vincenzo (Bernard Fresson) take off together for the city's red-light district, where Read More

4/14/61
La Giornata Balorda

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jean Sorel, Lea Massari, Jean Valerie, Isabelle Corey, Rik Battaglia

Synopsis: An uneven mix of right-on situations and two-dimensional characters or worse, La Giornata Balorda is all the more interesting because it was banned in Italy -- not because of sexual or anti-religious content, but because of its depiction of Italian society. David (Jean Sorel) is a poverty-stricken Read More

1961
Il Gobbo

Actors: Gérard Blain, Bernard Blier, Ivo Garrani, Pier Paolo Pasolini

Synopsis: This drama, loosely based on the legend of the "Hunchback," is set in Rome, 1944. The story begins as the Hunchback, a leader of the Resistance rapes a Nazi collaborator's daughter. Later he falls in love with her. As he is trying to steal arms from a Nazi arsenal, the Germans shoot the Hunchback. Read More

12/1/60
Bell' Antonio

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Pierre Brasseur, Rina Morelli, Tomas Milian

Synopsis: Directed by the comparatively unknown Mauro Bolognini, the Italian Bell' Antonio is distinguished by its screenplay, cowritten by directorial giant Pier Paolo Pasolini. Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale are happily married until she finds out he's impotent. It takes her a year to find Read More

3/4/60
La Dolce Vita

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Yvonne Furneaux, Anouk Aimée, Anita Ekberg, Alain Cuny, Lex Barker

Synopsis: In one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s, Federico Fellini featured Marcello Mastrioanni as gossip columnist Marcello Rubini. Having left his dreary provincial existence behind, Marcello wanders through an ultra-modern, ultra-sophisticated, ultra-decadent Rome. He Read More

2/3/60
La Lunga Notte del 43

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Belinda Lee, Gino Cervi

Synopsis: This is a dramatic, wartime story about the internecine fighting between Italians who opposed Mussolini during the war and those who supported fascism, even after 1945. Anna (Belinda Lee) is married to an invalid who spends his war years in their home in the Po Valley looking out the window and Read More

1960
La Notte Brava

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Laurent Terzieff, Jean-Claude Brialy, Rosanna Schiaffino, Mylène Demongeot, Elsa Martinelli

Synopsis: The exploits of three young Roman criminals are chronicled in this socially conscious drama. The young men commit petty crimes all day begin with arms theft, and culminating with a night with three streetwalkers. After their pleasure, the boys try to cheat the hookers, but they ladies are smarter Read More

11/12/59
Morte Di Un Amico

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Gianni Garko, Spiros Focas, Didi Perego, Angela Luce

Synopsis: An intentionally shocking drama about the down, often violent side of existence on the fringe, this story by Franco Rossi follows the same themes and attitudes found in the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Aldo (Gianni Garko) and Bruno (Spiros Fokas) grew up as close friends in the same neighborhood Read More

1959
Giovani Mariti

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sylva Koscina, Antonella Lualdi, Gérard Blain, Franco Interlenghi, Antonio Cifariello

Synopsis: The title of this Italian slice-of-life drama translates to Young Husbands. The husbands in question rather casually enter into marriage, never intending true fidelity to their spouses. When they realize that they're committed for life, our immature heroes return to their home town for one last Read More

3/12/58
Nights of Cabiria

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Giulietta Masina, Amedeo Nazzari, Franca Marzi, François Perier

Synopsis: Nights of Cabiria opens with Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) and her boyfriend playfully embracing by the seaside -- and then he shoves her into the water and steals her purse. Cabiria is revived by some local boys and runs off by herself, shouting. What follows is a series of similarly humiliating Read More

5/26/57
La Donna del Fiume

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sophia Loren, Rik Battaglia, Gérard Oury, Enrico Olivieri

Synopsis: Sophia Loren was still in the "Anna Magnani" phase of her career when she starred in La Donna del Flume (The River Girl). Sophia is cast as Nives, the girlfriend of capricious cigarette smuggler Gino Lodi (Rik Battaglia). When Gino deserts her, the impregnated Nives is soured on all men, including Read More

12/29/54

Movie data provided by

Add this Person to Favorites

Need Help?

E-mail