The Innocent (1976)

Richly luxuriant and thematically haunting, The Innocent (1976) is a tour-de-force period drama by master Italian director Luchino Visconti. Based on a novel by Gabriele d’Annunzio and set amid the upper crust of nineteenth-century Italian society, the film chronicles the rise and fall of Tullio (Giancarlo Giannini), a wealthy cad who sleeps around on his beautiful wife (Laura Antonelli). When Tullio’s spouse challenges society’s double standard by initiating an affair of her own, the wealthy chauvinist self-destructs in anger. In candid scenes of burning passion, Antonelli reveals why many critics considered her the second coming of Sophia Loren.