This film is currently unavailable
L'Assassino
Elio Petri’s dazzling first feature stars Marcello Mastroianni as dandyish antiques dealer arrested for murder by a Kafkaesque police force.
Director: Elio Petri
Overview
Released within months of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Antonioni’s La Notte, Elio Petri’s dazzling first feature also stars Marcello Mastroianni, this time as dandyish thirtysomething antiques dealer Alfredo Martelli, arrested on suspicion of murdering his older, far wealthier lover Adalgisa (Micheline Presle). But as the increasingly Kafkaesque police investigation proceeds, it becomes less and less important whether Martelli actually committed the crime as his entire lifestyle is effectively put on trial.
Best known for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and The Tenth Victim, Petri was one of the finest and yet most underrated Italian directors of the 1960s and 70s. Highly acclaimed on its original UK release but unjustly neglected since, L’Assassino is a remarkably assured debut from one of the cinema’s sharpest chroniclers of Italian social and political realities. Petri said that he wanted to reflect the changes wrought by the early sixties, and to examine “a new generation of upstarts who lacked any kind of moral scruple”.
moderate bad language, sex references, suicide referencesRelated
Bande à part Bande à part
Crime 1964 95 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Godard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the 1940s, executed with typically Gallic cool.
Eastern Condors Eastern Condors
Crime 1987 98 mins Director: Sammo Hung Kam-bo
Sammo Hung directs and stars in this high-kicking tribute to The Dirty Dozen, which sees ten convicts offered amnesty if the undertake a deadly mission behind enemy lines in Vietnam to destroy a top-secret munitions dump
Mapantsula Mapantsula
Crime 1989 104 mins Director: Oliver Schmitz
Panic, a petty gangster, is caught up in Township riots in this cult classic crime drama, the first anti-Apartheid film shot guerilla style on the streets of Soweto.
The Wages of Fear The Wages of Fear
Crime 1953 153 mins Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic, nail-biting suspense thriller won both The Golden Bear and the Palme d'Or in 1953.
El Ángel El Ángel
Crime 2018 115 mins Director: Luis Ortega
The controversial exploits of baby-faced Argentine serial killer Carlos Robledo Puch are exhilaratingly reinterpreted in this stylish biopic.
Verdict Verdict
Crime 2019 127 mins Director: Raymund Ribay Gutierrez
An abused wife presses charges against her violent husband, only to face fresh battles against corruption and bureaucracy, in this urgent and incensing courtroom thriller.
8½ 8½
Drama 1963 138 mins Director: Federico Fellini
Fellini triumphantly conjured himself out of writer's block with this magnum opus about a film director experiencing his own creative crisis.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Comedy 1963 118 mins Director: Vittorio De Sica
Irrepressible Vittorio De Sica (Bicycle Thieves) directs this Oscar-winning film of three comic tales of love and sex in three cities.
Orphée Orphée
Drama 1950 96 mins Director: Jean Cocteau
Magical retelling of the Orpheus myth by poet, playwright, artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau.
La Belle et la Bête La Belle et la Bête
Fantasy 1946 95 mins Director: Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau’s ravishingly restored 1946 film is a cinematic classic. “Five stars. [This] magical exploration of the fairytale is a compelling and bizarre masterpiece” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Air Doll Air Doll
Drama 2009 116 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
A life-size blow-up doll comes to life and falls in love with a video store clerk in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s haunting, melancholy meditation on urban alienation.
Floating Skyscrapers Floating Skyscrapers
Drama 2013 89 mins Director: Tomasz Wasilewski
Hailed as ‘Poland’s first LGBT film’, Tomasz Wasilewski’s striking drama follows a champion swimmer whose gay relationship causes ripples.
Sweet Sue Sweet Sue
Comedy 2022 100 mins Director: Leo Leigh
A shameless woman finds her new lover’s son wants to divide them in this cringe comic drama starring Maggie O’Neill.
Bande à part Bande à part
Crime 1964 95 mins Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Godard's playful tribute to the Hollywood pulp crime movies of the 1940s, executed with typically Gallic cool.