Another must-have film to head anyone's list of the Top Ten Best Films of All Time. The Bicycle Thief ranks as one of the most important films to come out of post World War II Italy and was recently lauded by Martin Scorsese in his 4 hour testament to the Italian Cinema, Il Mio Viaggio in Italia. On the surface it is a simple story of an unemployed man and his small son in war devastated Rome. The father finds a job pasting up posters, work requiring a bicycle. The bicycle is stolen, setting up the film's tragic and ironic ending. Panic stricken at being unable to recover his bicycle -and losing his means of employment- the father is compelled to steal another bicycle, only to be caught and humiliated in front of his son. Playwrite Arthur Miller aptly describes his feelings about this masterpiece, "It is as though the soul of man had been filmed." George Sadoul in his famous book "Dictionary of Films" states flat out, "This is the most important film of the immediate postwar period; its extension of the traditional concepts of plot and dramatic structure exerted considerable influence on the development of the cinema. Its story of a man searching for something on which his very life depended was a theme so new that the film required no artificial drama."

Actors: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda, Vittorio Antonucci
Directors: Vittorio De Sica
Writers: Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Cesare Zavattini, Gerardo Guerrieri, Luigi Bartolini
Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0), Italian (Dolby Digital 1.0)
Subtitles: English
Region: All Regions
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number of discs: 1
Rating: Unrated
Studio: Image Entertainment
DVD Release Date: November 24, 1998
Run Time: 93 minutes