Two Women

Watch Two Women (La ciociara, 1960) online on iFILM — Vittorio De Sica's neorealist war drama adapted from Alberto Moravia's novel, set in German-occupied Italy during 1943. Sophia Loren plays Cesira, a young Roman widow who flees the Allied bombing of the city with her teenage daughter Rosetta, heading for the relative safety of a mountain village.

The road there is harder than expected. In the village they meet Michele, a farmer's son played by a young Jean-Paul Belmondo, who falls for Cesira while her daughter is drawn to him. As the war drags on and the roads fill with refugees, the ordinary calculations of survival — food, shelter, trust — become impossible. The mother and daughter's journey home to a liberated Rome ends in an act of violence that changes both of them permanently.

Sophia Loren took home the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role — the first win for a performance in a non-English-language film. De Sica's camera stays close to his characters' faces throughout, making this one of the most quietly devastating portraits of civilian life in wartime Italian cinema. Stream Two Women (1960) online on iFILM.