Rocco and His Brothers

+ intro by season curator and film critic Christina Newland

Rocco e i suoi fratelli

Alain Delon stars in this beautiful family epic of love, pugilism, and tested loyalty.

  • Director

    Luchino Visconti

  • With

    Alain Delon, Annie Girardot, Renato Salvatori

  • Italy 1960. 177min

  • 35mm

  • English subtitles

  • A BFI release

Alain Delon stars in Luchino Visconti’s beautiful family epic of love, pugilism and tested loyalty. Visconti’s hypnotically beautiful tale of relocation, loss and sacrifice charts the fortunes of a family who move from a farm in the rural south, as so many did during this period, to find work in a very modern Milan. Of the five bumpkin brothers accompanying their mother, Delon’s Rocco is tasked with trying to manage the hedonistic appetites of Salvatori’s Simone. They both fall into the shadowy world of boxing, but when they also fall in love with the same woman – Girardot’s sex worker – loyalties are tested and the family threatens to break apart. Visconti’s epic tale is an operatic and poignant story of brotherhood.

Christina Newland, season curator

Contains scenes of sexual violence.

35mm courtesy of Cinecittà.

See other screenings of Rocco and His Brothers.

See our Luchino Visconti season.

Also available on BFI Player

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