Franco Rossellini

The one and the only Marcello Mastroianni reunited with the irrepressible master of Italian cinema Federico Fellini seventeen years after 8 1/2 for a story about—what else?—the arthouse dreamboat being beset by woman of all kinds, as an aging playboy soul-searches in a newly feminist Italy.

Building a bridge between noir and the then-nascent giallo genre, co-director Luigi Bazzoni’s innovative debut is an ominously atmospheric true-crime mystery. With liminal spaces reminiscent of Antonioni, The Possessed marries arthouse to grindhouse for a fevered tale of madness and murder.