Rome, Open City (), also released as Open City, is a 1945 Italian neorealist war drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini and co-written by Sergio Amidei, Celeste Negarville and Federico Fellini. Set in Rome in 1944, the film follows a diverse group of characters coping under the Nazi occupation, and centers on a Resistance fighter trying to escape the city with the help of a Catholic priest. The title refers to the status of Rome as an open city following its declaration as such on 14 August 1943. The film is the first in Rosselini's "Neorealist Trilogy", followed by Paisan (1946) and Germany, Year Zero (1948).
Open City is considered one of the most important and representative works of Italian neorealism, and an important stepping stone for Italian filmmaking as a whole. It was one of the first post-war Italian pictures to gain major acclaim and accolades internationally, winning the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival and being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar at the 19th Academy Awards. It launched director Rosselini, screenwriter Fellini, and actress Anna Magnani into the international spotlight.
In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978".
Plot
In occupied Rome in 1944, German SS troops are trying to arrest Luigi Ferraris (hiding under the alias of engineer Giorgio Manfredi), a communist, and leader of the Resistance against the Nazis and Italian Fascists. The landlady of his rooming house warns him in time for him to elude capture. He sneaks to the home of Francesco, another Resistance fighter. There he encounters Pina, Francesco's visibly pregnant fiancée, who lives in the next apartment. She first suspects Luigi of being a cop and gives him a rough time, but when he makes it clear he is a confederate of Francesco she welcomes him into his apartment to wait for him. With Pina's help Luigi/Giorgio contacts Don Pietro, a Catholic priest who is helping the Resistance. Luigi asks him to transfer messages and money to a group of Resistance fighters outside the city, as he is now known to the Gestapo and cannot do it himself. The priest willingly does so.
Don Pietro is also scheduled to officiate at Pina's and Francesco's wedding the next day. Francesco is not very religious, but would rather be married by a patriot priest than a fascist official; the devout Pina, on the other hand, is pragmatic about the decision - as it would be unthinkable in normal times for an unmarried pregnant woman to be married in a church - but wrestling with why God would allow such terrible things to happen to people as are occurring all around them. Her son, Marcello, a somewhat reluctant altar boy, is involved with a crippled youth fighting his own resistance planting bombs. Pina's feckless sister Laura stays with her, but works in a cabaret serving the Nazis and Fascists. She is also an old friend of Marina, Luigi's girlfriend, who has been looking for him. Marina also works in the cabaret and has not only turned to prostitution for the luxuries she craves but has become addicted to drugs by the treacherous Ingrid, a consort of the local Nazi commander, Major Bergmann.
Bergmann, helped by the Italian police chief, suspects that Luigi is at Francesco's apartment. They raid the huge building that afternoon, pulling everyone out and arresting dozens of men. Luigi gets away, but Francesco is thrown in a truck to be hauled off. Seeing him, Pina breaks through a cordon of soldiers screaming his name, but is shot dead. The priest, who was in the building to erase any trace of the Resistance weapons under the guise of praying for a dying man, holds her in his arms and prays as Part I ends.
Part II begins with the several trucks of Italian prisoners taken from the apartment building in a convoy with military vehicles, which is attacked by Resistance fighters. Most of the captives appear to escape. Francesco reconnects with Luigi. Together they go to the priest, who has offered to hide them in a monastery.
Afterwards the pair go to an inn where Marina lives and works to spend the night in hiding. When Luigi sees how she lives and finds her drugs they quarrel over her choices. Seeking revenge for his rebuke, she betrays both him and Francesco to the Nazis. The next morning Luigi, Francesco, Don Pietro, and an Austrian deserter the priest is also aiding, leave for the monastery. Francesco lags slightly behind, and is able to escape when the rest of the party is ambushed by Germans, who mistakenly believe the Austrian is him. Marina is rewarded by Ingrid with a fur coat and more drugs.