Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

Watch Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) online on iFILM — Elio Petri's Oscar-winning Italian political thriller, with Gian Maria Volonté delivering one of European cinema's most chilling performances. The film took home the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Rome's chief of police murders his own mistress and then deliberately seeds the crime scene with evidence pointing straight at himself — his fingerprints, threads from his coat. He reports the killing to his own department and takes command of the investigation. He isn't hiding. He's running a test to see whether power can make itself untouchable.

Petri turned what looks like a murder mystery into a cold anatomy of institutional self-protection: the more obvious the guilt, the harder the machine works to look anywhere else. It's the kind of film that ages badly for all the right reasons. Stream Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) in full on iFILM.