As a child, Sicilian Placido Rizzotto saw his father imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, and as a young man he fought in World War II, first as a soldier and then as an anti-fascist partisan. These events have left Placido with little taste for petty tyranny and with a desire to promote social justice. Upon his return home, he becomes increasingly aware that the Mafia has taken hold of his village, witnessing angry and frustrated as gangsters control local politics and take whatever they want from the people. Placido helps to form a trade union as a challenge to the Mafia's authority, and attempts to organize the villagers into a collective to grow crops in the fields taken by the Mafia.

During WWII, a teenage boy discovering himself becomes love-stricken by Malèna, a sensual woman living in a small, narrow-minded Italian town.

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

A group of policemen and policewomen from different municipalities are in Rome to take a course that will take them on a study trip to London.