In wartime Italy, Emanuele Bardone cons his fellow Italians by promising to help find their missing loved ones in exchange for money. But when the Nazis force him to impersonate a dead general in prison to extract information from fellow inmates, Bardone finds himself wrestling with his conscience.

For his postmortem of Italian attitudes under Nazi occupation, Roberto Rossellini cast fellow neorealist auteur Vittorio De Sica in a staggering lead performance. A Golden Lion winner at Venice, this searing masterwork examines the thin lines between cowardice and heroism, fiction and documentary.