Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema post-World War II,[1] producing some of the country's most acclaimed and financially-successful films of the 1950s and 1960s.

He won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film for La Strada (1954) and was nominated for Best Picture for producing Doctor Zhivago (1965).

[3] Ponti attempted to establish a film industry in Milan in 1940 and produced Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico there, starring Alida Valli, in her first notable role.

[6] He made Giacomo the Idealist (1943), A Yank in Rome (1946), To Live in Peace (1947), The White Primrose (1948), Prelude to Madness (1948) and Hey Boy (1948).

Ponti produced some films starring Gina Lollobrigida: Alarm Bells (1949), The White Line (1950), A Dog's Life (1950).

Ponti alternated this with more serious material such as Europe '51 (1952) from Roberto Rossellini, Brothers of Italy (1952), Lieutenant Giorgio (1953), and Easy Years (1953).

[6] Along with a Toto comedy The Doctor of the Mad (1954) he and de Laurentiis produced an international film, Mambo (1954) directed by Robert Rossen.

[7] Ponti continued to produce smaller movies for the Italian market such as The Railroad Man (1956), and Guendalina (1957), but his focus was increasingly on bigger budgeted films aimed at the international market starring Loren: The Black Orchid (1959) with Anthony Quinn, That Kind of Woman (1959) with Tab Hunter, Heller in Pink Tights (1960) with Quinn again, A Breath of Scandal (1960) with John Gavin.

Ponti produced a series of movies in France: Lola (1961) starred Anouk Aimee, A Woman Is a Woman (1961) directed by Jean-Luc Godard, Léon Morin, Priest (1961) from Jean-Pierre Melville starring Jean Paul Belmondo, Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) from Agnès Varda, Le Doulos (1962) with Belmondo, Landru (1962), plus The Carabineers (1963) and Contempt (1963) from Godard.

Ponti continued to make movies in Italy, notably Boccaccio '70 (1962), Redhead (1962), The Empty Canvas (1962), Break Up (1965) and two with Loren, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) and Marriage Italian Style (1964).

Ponti produced his most popular and financially successful film, Doctor Zhivago, in 1965; the movie was directed by David Lean and made by MGM.

In 1962, they had the marriage annulled, after which Ponti arranged with his first wife, Giuliana, that the three of them move to France (which at that time allowed divorce) and become French citizens.

These included examples from his early Van Gogh series, triptychs, self-portraits and pope paintings, which were rarely publicised or lent to public exhibitions.

In 1977 the Bacon paintings, then valued at an estimated $6.7 million, were seized and turned over by the Italian government to the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan; thirty-three sketches by George Grosz went to a museum in Caserta.

[17] When Ponti reached a deal with the Italian government and was cleared of the charges brought against him in 1990, he regained possession of 230 confiscated paintings.