When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.

Orazio Menicotti is a night policeman in Rome. One night he is present at a quarrel between husband and wife and he volunteers to take the wife to the Police Station. While he goes around Rome with the blonde and beautiful woman, a bank is robbed.

An anthology of four comic moral tales about the hypocrisies surrounding sex in 1960s Italy: frothy young love and office politics in the big city; milk advertisements that begin to haunt an aging prude; a trophy wife enduring her husband's very public affairs; a lucky ticket-holder at a small town fair.

Michele, a young mechanic, is in love with Angela Antonia, beautiful but capricious: the girl's father, once he learns of the relationship, has him fired from the place where he works and is forced to move to Naples. He asks for hospitality from his aunt Carmela, concierge in a building, but she has no vacancies and arranges him as Donna Tecla, the owner of a pension who, having three young daughters eager to get married, hopes to arrange at least one. But the three girls are not the best of beauty and Michele, gifted with a beautiful voice, agrees to sing in a club on behalf of an impresario who becomes his friend.

Sor Clemente tries to avoid an underwater fishing trip together with his authoritarian wife's friends and pretends to be ill. Left alone in the villa he's left in the company of a friend and a butler.

A tribute to Naples, this film presents six episodes: a clown exploited by a gangster, a pizza seller losing her husband’s ring, a child's funeral, a gambler beaten by a kid, a prostitute's unusual wedding, and a "wisdom seller" offering advice.

Aging small-time conman Augusto works with two younger men: Roberto, who desires to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Carlo, nicknamed Picasso. Through a series of mishaps and personal entanglements, things go badly for Augusto.

Nine episodes about life in Italy in the period just before its economic boom.

The story of "King Lazzarone" Ferdinand I of Bourbon whose pastime was to neglect the government and disguise himself as a poor man and turn to the infamous city premises in search of love adventures. With the De Filippo brothers to complete.

Alberto Nardi is a Roman businessman who fancies himself a man of great capabilities, but whose factory teeters perennially on the brink of catastrophe. Alberto is married to a rich and successful businesswoman from Milan, Elvira Almiraghi who has a no-nonsense attitude and barely tolerates the attempts of her husband to keep his factory afloat with her money.