In impoverished post-war Rome, a gang of young thieves is lead by Stefano, the son of an illustrious professor. The police suspects that the criminals are actually university students; inspector Mariani, a young World War II veteran, enrolls and tries to find out more. He falls for a pretty fellow...
Giovanni Medici, the future leader of the Black Bands, has a last meeting in a convent with his dying mother Caterina Sforza, listening to the re-enactment of her life.
Omnibus film with individual segments directed by Renato Castellani, Luigi Comencini and Franco Rossi; all of them starring the radiant Catherine Spaak as "out of place" women longing for love, in a Sicillian village, a monastery, and a modern Italian urban setting, respectively.
Carlo Savelli, gone missing after the war, returns to Italia after many years. His wife Anna, believing him dead, has established a romance with Andrea, and in order to keep him happy, she follows him to Venice.
After the war, Aldo and his men became gangster. But now the times are changing and Aldo decides to became a policeman to help better his men in crime. He meets Giovanna and falls for her. But he begins liking his new job and after their first robbery, Aldo tries to leave his old accomplices...
The mental illness affecting young Dario, one of the two sons of the Dominici family living in a council building in Rome, disrupts the lives of all its members.
Turi, having returned to Sicily from abroad, learns that his sister Maruzza is the lover of Cosimo Barrese, a militant of the Movement for the Independence of Sicily, who, abandoned by everyone, has become a bandit. The two would like to get married, but life as an outlaw seems an insurmountable...