Curator Watchlist
A major political-psychological drama with extraordinary visual design, The Conformist is as much about repression, performance, and moral cowardice as it is about fascist complicity. Its cold elegance and formal precision make it one of the defining art films of its era.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 48m
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
Bernardo Bertolucci
Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin
A major political-psychological drama with extraordinary visual design, The Conformist is as much about repression, performance, and moral cowardice as it is about fascist complicity. Its cold elegance and formal precision make it one of the defining art films of its era.
The Conformist is a film of surfaces that never stay superficial. Its immaculate compositions, icy interiors, and shifting camera movements turn a story of political obedience into something stranger and more intimate: a study of a man who mistakes normality for salvation and ends up hollowed out by it.
What makes it endure is the way it connects ideology to desire, shame, and self-erasure. The film is politically sharp, but it is also deeply psychological, finding tragedy in Marcello’s need to disappear into the crowd while secretly craving absolution, status, and escape.
It is not an easy film in the emotional sense, but it is an essential one for anyone interested in cinema as visual argument. Even decades later, its style feels modern, precise, and unsettlingly alive.
Will Sloan (5★) · 1174 likes
The moving story of a young Pete Buttigieg's struggle to cut ties with his Marxist father. Vittorio Storaro's stunning cinematography introduces many of the visual ideas he would perfect a half-century later in Rifkin's Festival.
ScreeningNotes (5★) · 985 likes
Too-good-to-be-true first time viewing. The Conformist is a quiet character study like Le Samourai but with the content reversed: Marcello is desperate to be as cool as Jef, and in his desperation he constantly reveals how uncool he actually is. His frantic belief in the big Other belies his lack of belief in himself. Through this psychological drama, the film aligns fascism with a kind of impotence and repressed sexuality. The cinematography is also all-time great status (primarily shot composition
mary (4.5★) · 662 likes
men will turn to fascism instead of admitting they're a little gay
CJ Probst (5★) · 660 likes
Now this is what a beautiful film looks like. As I have been slightly underwhelmed by some of the early cinema I watched for Film School Dropouts, I got from The Conformist that irresistible, nostalgic magnetic pull that I had been seeking because it was so beautiful I just wanted to jump through the screen. Whether it is the period Italian fashions, the old cars or the chic interiors enhanced by some otherworldly cinematography, the entire film felt like a
reibureibu (4.5★) · 599 likes
You can have everything – money, status, looks and class – and still have nothing really. All these things are important, certainly, and many would kill just for a taste of them, but a humanity these do not make and a fulfilling life they do not necessarily lead. The Conformist is a cold, distant, empty film full of vacuous objects and vacuous people – in some ways, there is no distinction between the two. Here is a world full of… more
A grand Italian historical drama about class, power, and social adaptation, with the same sense of fading aristocratic worlds and political change.
For viewers drawn to psychological complexity, self-invention, and the decadent elegance of mid-century Italian cinema.
A corrosive study of fascism, family rot, and moral collapse that pairs well with The Conformist’s political unease.
Another sharp Italian political allegory about power, guilt, and institutional corruption, with a similarly biting edge.
For those interested in the extremity of fascist imagery and the connection between power, cruelty, and dehumanization.
A landmark political film that shares The Conformist’s seriousness about ideology, state violence, and historical pressure.
A claustrophobic study of domination, submission, and identity collapse in a beautifully controlled style.
For its subjective unease, psychological fracture, and elegant visual expression of inner disintegration.
A cool, stylish 1960s art film that turns atmosphere and visual ambiguity into a form of existential inquiry.
If the appeal is formal mystery, hypnotic composition, and the feeling of being trapped inside a beautiful mental maze.
A later Antonioni film about identity drift, political dislocation, and the emptiness behind a polished exterior.
Not applicable
fascism, conformity, repression, identity, moral cowardice, sexual shame, political complicity, alienation
political drama, psychological drama, art cinema, fascism, repression, alienation, stylized cinematography, period drama, moral decay, European cinema