Emma and Lucia grow up together in an orphanage and remain friends throughout adulthood. When Emma has to work away from home, she entrusts her daughter to Lucia. When she receives word that her daughter has died, she is desolate - but whose child did, actually, pass away?

Forced by her lover to sell her body, Renata is saved from a suicide attempt by Paolo Martelli, an engineer. She asks him to help her find a job. When Paolo's wife humiliates her, Renata gains revenge by seducing the woman's husband.

Anna is a 1951 Italian drama film directed by Alberto Lattuada and starring the same trio as Bitter Rice: Silvana Mangano as Anna, the sinner who becomes a nun; Raf Vallone as Andrea, the rich man who loves her; and Vittorio Gassman as Vittorio, the wicked waiter who sets Anna on a dangerous path.

The wife of a mechanic and tester of Alfa Romeo cars becomes the lover of a pilot. The two decide to flee together in Argentina.

Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder.

A renowned sculptor aged about fifty years, François Bressolles falls for the young Catherine Collet whom he convinces without difficulty to pose for him. Complications ensue when he starts to go blind.