Adapted from Alberto Moravia’s novel of the same name, De Sica’s heartbreaking story of a mother and daughter during World War II earned Sophia Loren a Best Actress Oscar, the first for a performer in a foreign-language film. Widow Cesira (Loren) and her daughter Rosetta (Eleanora Brown) leave Rome for the relative safety of Cesira’s hometown in the countryside. There, they befriend Michele (Jean-Paul Belmondo), an affable Marxist who resists the Fascists around him, waiting out the conflict. After Allied forces take Italy, mother and daughter follow them on their march toward Rome—but a violent, traumatic event forever changes their their relationship.