Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette) Vittorio de Sica, 1948 is unarguably one of the fundamental films in the history of cinema. It is also one of the most beguiling, moving and (apparently) simple pieces of narrative cinema ever made. The film tells the story of one man and his son, as they search fruitlessly through the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle; the bicycle which had finally freed him from the poverty and humiliation of longterm unemployment.

One of a cluster of extraordinary films to come out of post-war, post-Fascist Italy after 1945 loosely labelled...