1948 Italie Zwart-wit 88 minuten

You live and you suffer

A crowd forms in front of a government employment agency, as it does every day, waiting - often in vain - for job announcements. Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) finds a chance to work at a good city job hanging and pasting up posters. This requires a bicycle, which he has long sold, so to get his bicycle out of hock his wife Maria ( Lianella Carell) offers to pawn some bed linens that comprise her dowry.

But the bicycle is stolen on Antonio's first day at work and he and his young son (Enzo Staiola) search the streets of Rome in hopes of recovering it. The two eventually find the thief but are unable to prove their case due to a lack of evidence or witnesses. Antonio is forced to sacrifice his morals and the admiration of his son to save the family