Bicycle Thieves (Italian: Ladri di biciclette), also known as The Bicycle Thief, is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi Bartolini and was adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini. It stars Lamberto Maggiorani as the poor man searching for his lost bicycle and Enzo Staiola as his son.

It was given an Academy Honorary Award in 1950, and, just four years after its release, was deemed the greatest film of all time by the magazine Sight & Sound's poll of filmmakers and critics in 1952.^[2] The film placed sixth as the greatest ever made in Sight & Sound's latest directors' poll, conducted in 2002,^[3] and was ranked in the top 10 of the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.

Plot [link]

Antonio Ricci is an unemployed man in the depressed post-World War II economy of Italy. With a wife and two children to support, he is desperate for work. He is delighted to at last get a good job pasting up posters, but he must have a bicycle. He is told unequivocally, "No bicycle, no job." He has one, but it has been pawned, so his wife Maria pawns their bedsheets in order to redeem it, and then, in spite of Antonio's mockery, goes to pay a fortune teller who had prophesied to her that he would find work.

On his first day of work, Antonio's bicycle is stolen by a young thief, who snatches it when he is putting up a poster. Antonio gives chase, but to no avail. He goes to the police, but there is little they can do. The only option is for Antonio, his young son Bruno, and his friends to walk the streets of Rome themselves, looking for the bicycle. They search Rome's largest square Piazza Vittorio, where they find stalls selling countless bicycles and parts resembling his own. They falsely accuse a merchant of possessing the stolen bike, and their task seems futile. Subsequently, at the market at Porta Portese Antonio and Bruno believe they have found the thief trying to pawn the bike to an old man, and they chase him but he manages to get away. Later they see the old man and pursue him into a church, where they accuse him of knowing where the purported thief resides. The commotion disrupts the mass, and the old man manages to slip away.

During a rare treat of a meal in a restaurant, Antonio shares his shattered dreams with his son. Desperate, Antonio even visits the fortune teller about whom he had been sceptical before. Here he is told, "you'll find the bike quickly, or not at all." Antonio hands over some money and leaves.

As he walks out of the clairvoyant's house, he encounters the thief and chases him into a whorehouse. Antonio takes the thief outside and is set upon by the hostile neighbours. Bruno slips off to fetch a policeman. Meanwhile, Antonio angrily accuses the thief of stealing his bike, but the young man denies it. When the policeman arrives, the thief is lying on the ground, having or feigning a seizure. The irate neighbours blame Antonio for causing the boy's fit.

The policeman searches the boy's apartment unsuccessfully for the bicycle, and tells Antonio that his case is weak; he did not catch the thief red-handed, nor did he get the names of any witnesses, and the policeman is certain the neighbours will give the thief an alibi. Antonio gives up and walks away in despair, to the jeers of the crowd.

Sitting on the curb outside a packed football stadium, Antonio sees an area thick with parked bicycles. As he cradles his head in despair, a fleet of bicycles speeds past him. After vacillating for some time, he tries to steal one outside a building. However, he is caught by a crowd of angry men who slap and humiliate him in front of his son. The bicycle's owner sees how upset Bruno is and mercifully declines to press charges. Antonio and his son walk away, dejected. Bruno grasps his father's hand to comfort him.

Cast [link]

• Lamberto Maggiorani as Antonio Ricci
• Enzo Staiola as Bruno Ricci, Antonio's son
• Lianella Carell as Maria Ricci, Antonio's wife
• Gino Saltamerenda as Baiocco, Antonio's friend who helps search
• Vittorio Antonucci as Bicycle thief
• Giulio Chiari as Beggar

Background [link]

Bicycle Thieves is the best known neo-realist film; a movement begun by Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), which attempted to give a new degree of realism to cinema.^[4] Following the precepts of the movement, De Sica shot only on location in Rome, and instead of professional actors used nonactors with no training in performance; for example, Lamberto Maggiorani, the leading actor, was a factory worker. This method added realism to the film, since some actors' off-screen lives paralleled their onscreen roles. ^[5] The picture is also in the Vatican's Best Films List for portraying humanistic values.^[6]

Critical reception [link]

Bicycle Thieves has received acclaim from critics ever since its release, earning a 96% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes out of 48 reviews, getting an average 8.9 out of 10 rating. It got a slightly lower 83% 'Fresh' in the "Top Critics" category, with an 8.1 out of 10 average. In terms of the audience, the film was also well-received, with 94% liking it, giving it a 4.3 out of 5 average rating.^[7]

Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, lauded the film and its message in his review. He wrote, "Again the Italians have sent us a brilliant and devastating film in Vittorio De Sica's rueful drama of modern city life, The Bicycle Thief. Widely and fervently heralded by those who had seen it abroad (where it already has won several prizes at various film festivals), this heart-tearing picture of frustration, which came to [the World Theater] yesterday, bids fair to fulfill all the forecasts of its absolute triumph over here. For once more the talented De Sica, who gave us the shattering Shoeshine, that desperately tragic demonstration of juvenile corruption in post-war Rome, has laid hold upon and sharply imaged in simple and realistic terms a major—indeed, a fundamental and universal—dramatic theme. It is the isolation and loneliness of the little man in this complex social world that is ironically blessed with institutions to comfort and protect mankind".^[8]

When the film was re-released in the late 1990s Bob Graham, staff film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, gave the drama a positive review: "The roles are played by non-actors, Lamberto Maggiorani as the father and Enzo Staiola as the solemn boy, who sometimes appears to be a miniature man. They bring a grave dignity to De Sica's unblinking view of post-war Italy. The wheel of life turns and grinds people down; the man who was riding high in the morning is brought low by nightfall. It is impossible to imagine this story in any other form than De Sica's. The new black-and-white print has an extraordinary range of grey tones that get darker as life closes in".^[9]

Influence [link]

Wang Xiaoshuai's 2001 film Beijing Bicycle explores similar themes of poverty and alienation, set in late 20th-century Beijing. Such similarities, and the bicycle theft driving the plot, have led critics to see parallels in the films. The relationship between Bruno and Antonio displays the strong bond between a father and his son. ^[10][11][12]

Bicycle Thieves also influenced several Indian films. It was cited as an influence on several early Indian art films, including Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin (Two Acres of Land, 1953)^[13] and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955). The plot of the 2007 Tamil film, Polladhavan, which features Dhanush trying to find his stolen bike, was loosely inspired by Bicycle Thieves. Indian director Anurag Kashyap cites this film as his inspiration for becoming a director.^[14] At least one critic cited it as an influence on Zeze Gamboa's Angolan film O Heroi (The Hero, 2004), in which a war veteran's prosthetic leg is stolen.

The film was also parodied in the 1989 film The Icicle Thief.

The film was also on TCM's top 15 most influential films list.^[15]

It was ranked #4 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.^[16]

Translated title [link]

The original Italian title literally translates into English as Bicycle Thieves, biciclette and ladri being plural, but the film has usually been released in the United States as The Bicycle Thief. According to critic Philip French of The Observer (UK), this alternative title is misleading, "because the desperate hero eventually becomes himself a bicycle thief".^[17] The film is released in the UK as the more accurate Bicycle Thieves, and the recent Criterion Collection release in North America uses the plural title.^[18]

When the film was re-released in the late 1990s Bob Graham, staff film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, was quoted as saying that he preferred the title The Bicycle Thief, stating, "Purists have criticized the English title of the film as a poor translation of the Italian ladri, which is plural. What blindness! The Bicycle Thief is one of those wonderful titles whose power does not sink in until the film is over".^[9]

Awards [link]

• Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland: Special Prize of the Jury, Vittorio De Sica; 1949.
• National Board of Review: NBR Award, Best Director, Vittorio De Sica; Best Film (Any Language), Italy; 1949.
• New York Film Critics Circle Awards: NYFCC Award, Best Foreign Language Film, Italy; 1949.
• Academy Awards: Honorary Award, Italy. Voted by the Academy Board of Governors as the most outstanding foreign language film released in the United States during 1949; 1950.
• Academy Awards: Nominated, Oscar, Best Writing, Screenplay, Cesare Zavattini; 1950.
• Bucharest Film Festival: Golden Wolf for Best Film; 1950.
• British Academy of Film and Television Arts: BAFTA Film Award, Best Film from any Source; 1950.
• Bodil Awards, Copenhagen, Denmark: Bodil, Best European Film (Bedste europæiske film), Vittorio De Sica; 1950.
• Golden Globes: Golden Globe, Best Foreign Film, Italy; 1950.
• Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain: CEC Award, Best Foreign Film (Mejor Película Extranjera), Italy; 1951.
• Kinema Junpo Awards, Tokyo, Japan: Kinema Junpo Award, Best Foreign Language Film, Vittorio De Sica; 1951.
• Best Cinematography (Migliore Fotografia), Carlo Montuori.
• Best Director (Migliore Regia), Vittorio De Sica.
• Best Film (Miglior Film a Soggetto).
• Best Score (Miglior Commento Musicale), Alessandro Cicognini.
• Best Screenplay (Migliore Sceneggiatura), Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Oreste Biancoli, Adolfo Franci, and Gerardo Guerrieri.
• Best Story (Miglior Soggetto), Cesare Zavattini.

References [link]

External links [link]

• Bicycle Thieves at the Internet Movie Database
• Bicycle Thieves is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more] (German dialoge)
• Bicycle Thieves essay at Criterion Collection by Godfrey Cheshire ("Bicycle Thieves: A Passionate Commitment to the Real")
• Bicycle Thieves video film review by A. O. Scott (The New York Times) at YouTube
• Bicycle Thieves trailer at YouTube