BITTER RICE
Special Features: New 4K Restoration
During planting season in northern Italy’s Po Valley, an earthy rice-field worker (Silvana Mangano) falls in with a small-time criminal (Vittorio Gassman) who is planning a daring heist of the crop, as well as his femme-fatale-ish girlfriend, played by the Hollywood star Doris Dowling. Both a socially conscious look at the hardships endured by underpaid field workers and a melodrama tinged with sex and violence, this early smash for producer extraordinaire Dino De Laurentiis and director Giuseppe De Santis is neorealism with a heaping dose of pulp. (Note courtesy of Janus Films.) DIR/SCR Giueseppe De Santis; SCR Corrado Alvaro, Carlo Lizzani, Carlo Musso, Ivo Perilli, Gianni Puccini; PROD Dino De Laurentiis. Italy, 1949, b&w, 109 min. In Italian with English subtitles. NOT RATED
Run Time: 109 Minutes
Opening Date: Friday, May 15, 2026
Genre: Crime drama
