Bitter Rice (Riso amaro)

Bitter Rice (Riso amaro) (1948)

  • 82% of users liked it
    (378 ratings)

Originally released as Riso Amaro, Bitter Rice was one of the landmark films of the postwar Italian neorealist movement. Silvana Mangano portrays one of hundreds of women toiling slavishly in the Po Valley rice fields. She is courted by two men: respectable Raf Vallone and no-good fugitive from… More

Unrated, 1 hr. 48 min.
Directed By
Giuseppe De Santis
Genres
Art House & International, Drama
In Theaters
Sep 21, 1949 Wide
Criterion Collection

Critic Reviews

  • Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

    A quintessential film of Italian neorealism of postWWII, though it became an international sensation due to the overt sex appeal and shot of breasts of Silvana Mangano, then only 19.

  • Donald J. Levit, ReelTalk Movie Reviews

    'Bitter Rice'-- a film that initiated a change in direction for a big national player in world cinema -- holds up enough after all these years.

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Stella D


    the beginning of the end for italian neorealism was when directors started injecting sex and violence for better box office. this film sets out to explore the exploitation of female rice pickers in the italian countryside and ends in a noirish shootout. in between we have mud… More

  • Stefanie C


    What better way to depict the clash of cultural values than by blending elements of Neo-Realism with American film genres? The setting of the panoramic Po River Valley is obviously Marxist, as many felt this was the only area in which a true 'Workers Revolution' could… More

  • Gevvy S


    a mixed bag, if there ever was one

Cast

See full cast

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