The movie tells the little stories of a group of families who live in the same building in Rome as seen from the eyes of Sandrino, a little kid who is awaiting for a total eclipse of the sun, that really happened during summer of '61, and it was was fully visible from Italy. He sees his family life, a young girl who is about to marry a man she doesn't love, an old man who has just died and whose relatives fight for his inheritance, a blind trumpet player who hopes to recover, his little friends...

June 27, 1980: a DC–9 flying over the Tyrrhenian Sea breaks up mid-air and crashes near the Italian island of Ustica, killing all 81 people on board. The official version blames the "structural failure" of the plane, but a young journalist smells a cover-up and starts fighting to break free the truth from the 'invisible wall' of lies built by politicians and air force higher-ups.

Matilda is an unlucky girl: her boyfriends keep dying in strange accidents. The last of them, Torquato, a shy filing clerk, is a little afraid of this situation and doesn't know how to continue the relationship.

Crossword-solving waitress Gloria falls for a womanizing TV repairman.