Film

The Conformist

Name: The Conformist
Genre: Drama
Released: 1971
Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Dominique Sanda, Enzo Tarascio

A hypnotic portrait of a man who trades his conscience for belonging, becoming a fascist enforcer to bury the shame of his own desires. Bertolucci and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro turn 1930s Italy into ravishing, geometric tableaux, telling the story through memory and colour rather than plot. Slow, elliptical, gorgeous — cinema as texture, for patient watchers.

TMDb rating

3.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love films where period style, cool framing and saturated color carry the moral unease, so that every composed shot feels like a clue to a character's hollowness.

Skip it if you want brisk momentum or a clear hero to root for, since the protagonist is passive and the film moves through elegant, deliberate stretches rather than driving plot.

What it asks of you: Around 108 minutes of patient attention, with stylized, dreamlike compositions and a slow accumulation of dread rather than quick cuts or easy release.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Lives of Others2006

A Stasi officer assigned to spy on a writer slowly discovers his own conscience — the same quiet dread of a man realising too late what his loyalty has cost him, told through a patient, watchful camera.

But It's methodical and low on incident; if you want fireworks rather than surveillance-room stillness, it will feel slow.

Cabaret1972

Berlin's decadent nightlife dances right up to the edge of Nazism, and the film lets the glamour curdle in real time — politics as seduction, exactly the trick Bertolucci's fascists pull off.

But It's a musical first, so if you can't stomach song-and-dance numbers beside swastikas, the tonal whiplash may put you off.

Mephisto1981

An ambitious actor trades his integrity for status under the Third Reich, charting the same slow surrender of self that makes Marcello such a chilling case study.

But Little-known outside arthouse circles and fairly theatrical; it demands patience for its stagey framing and unhurried pace.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Conformist

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act of Killing2012

Where Bertolucci imagines his way into a fascist's psyche, this documentary hands real perpetrators the camera and lets them perform their own atrocities — the same question of how ordinary men become instruments, but unbearably real.

Indonesian death-squad leaders from the 1965-66 purges cheerfully restage their own killings as movie-genre pastiche, producing one of the most disturbing studies of self-justification ever filmed.

But It's genuinely upsetting and morally vertiginous — not something to watch for craft alone, and it lingers uncomfortably.

The Damned1969

Visconti's operatic account of a wealthy German family devouring itself as the Nazis rise gives you the same rot-beneath-elegance Bertolucci loves, pushed to gothic extremes.

But It's lurid and overlong, closer to melodrama than tragedy — some will find the excess exhausting rather than seductive.

Munich2005

Spielberg's account of Israeli agents hunting the killers behind the 1972 Olympics turns political violence into slow moral corrosion, asking what an assassin loses each time he pulls the trigger.

But It's a straighter thriller than Bertolucci's film, with none of the visual poetry — expect tension over texture.

The Night Porter1974

A former SS officer and the camp survivor he once tormented meet again years later, and the film stares unflinchingly at how desire and complicity can tangle into something monstrous.

But It's deliberately provocative and upsetting by design — some find its erotics of power indefensible rather than illuminating.

Death in Venice1971

Visconti again, drowning a repressed man's longing in impossibly beautiful surfaces — if you loved watching Storaro's camera worship Trintignant's face, you'll want more of this kind of gaze.

But Almost no dialogue and barely any plot; it's pure mood, which can feel glacial if you need a story to hold onto.

Amarcord1973

Fellini remembers his own fascist-era childhood as carnival rather than tragedy, a warmer, funnier companion piece showing the same period through nostalgia instead of dread.

But It's episodic and shaggy by design, with little narrative drive — frustrating if you want Bertolucci's tight psychological focus.

Army of Shadows1969

Melville's austere account of the French Resistance strips heroism down to exhausted, frightened people making impossible choices — the quiet cousin of Marcello's story, seen from the other side of the fence.

But It's cold and unshowy on purpose; anyone hoping for Bertolucci's visual lushness will find this deliberately drab.

Rome, Open City1945

Same fascist-occupied Italy Bertolucci looks back on with painterly hindsight, except Rossellini filmed it while the wounds were still open, using real rubble instead of Storaro's colour and composition.

Shot in a bombed-out Rome just after the war, with non-actors and borrowed film stock, it captures fascist occupation and resistance with a rawness no studio recreation can fake.

But The neorealist style is plain and unpolished by design — if you expect Bertolucci's visual ravishment, the contrast will jar.

The Talented Mr. Ripley1999

Swap the fascist regime for the Riviera and the engine is identical: a man erasing his real self, including a desire he can't admit, to be absorbed by a world that isn't his — charm as camouflage, violence as the price of belonging.

Matt Damon's social climber reinvents himself so thoroughly that murder becomes just another costume change, set against sun-drenched 1950s Italy that makes the rot look irresistible.

But It plays as a glossy, propulsive thriller rather than a meditation — if you want Bertolucci's slow dread, this moves too fast and smooth.