The picture of poverty in post-war Italy is masterfully captured in this story about a father whose job depends on having a bike which is stolen from him. “Bicycle Thieves is delicate, poetic, and pardon the big word, universal. It’s Sunday in Rome, with sun and rain, soup kitchens and rough neighbourhoods, markets and trattorias, and this father and son cross the city in one of the most moving walks in film history. One of De Sica and Zavattini’s masterpieces, shot on the street with amateur actors, Bicycle Thieves is – in the words of André Bazin – “the ideal centre around which gravitate, each in his own orbit, the works of other great directors.”