Born in Bobbio, near Piacenza, Marco Bellocchio had a strict Catholic upbringing – his father was a lawyer, his mother a schoolteacher.

Bellocchio's films include China Is Near (1967), Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina (Slap the Monster on Page One) (1972), Nel Nome del Padre (In the name of the Father – a satire on a Catholic boarding school that shares affinities with Lindsay Anderson's If....) (1972), Victory March (1976), A Leap in the Dark (1980), Henry IV (1984), Devil in the Flesh (1986), and My Mother's Smile (2002), which told the story of a wealthy Italian artist, a 'default-Marxist and atheist', who suddenly discovers that the Vatican is proposing to make his detested mother a saint.

He finished Sorelle Mai, an experimental film that was shot over ten years with the students of six separate workshops playing themselves.

[7] On 6 September 2012, Bellocchio condemned the Catholic Church's interference in politics after the premiere of his controversial film about a high-profile euthanasia case.

In 1968, he joined the Union of Italian Communists (Marxist-Leninist), a Maoist group, and began to make politically militant cinema.

"In another interview conducted in London Film Festival of 2006, he insisted still being a leftist, but argued for a need to reinvent the term:[10] In Italy politics is pretty mediocre and depressing.

He has three children including a son Pier Giorgio Bellocchio with actress Gisella Burinato and a daughter Elena with his current partner Francesca Calvelli who is also the editor for his films.