Set in Rome in 1944, the film follows a diverse group of characters coping under the Nazi occupation, and centers on a Resistance fighter trying to escape the city with the help of a Catholic priest.

It was one of the first post-war Italian pictures to gain major acclaim and accolades internationally, winning the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival[4] and being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar at the 19th Academy Awards.

[5] In occupied Rome in 1944, German SS troops are trying to arrest Luigi Ferraris (hiding under the alias of engineer Giorgio Manfredi), a communist, and leader of the Resistance against the Nazis and Italian Fascists.

Marina also works in the cabaret and has not only turned to prostitution for the luxuries she craves but has become addicted to drugs by the treacherous Ingrid, a consort of the local Nazi commander, Major Bergmann.

Part II begins with the several trucks of Italian prisoners taken from the apartment building in a convoy with military vehicles, which is attacked by Resistance fighters.

At Nazi headquarters Bergmann tells Ingrid of his plan - to extract everything from his captives before dawn in order to take the Resistance by surprise before news of their capture can get back to it.

Effectively sightless since his glasses were broken being thrown roughly into a cell upon arrival at Nazi headquarters, Don Pietro is heartened when he recognizes the boys' tribute.

Seeing Don Pietro still mumbling prayers the presiding German officer, the same man who while drunk had decried the futility of the Nazi obsession with world dominance the night before to Major Bergmann, shouts at the commander of the firing squad to finish his task.

The boys bow their heads in grief and slowly depart, the city of Rome and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica visible in the background.

Rossellini had initially planned a documentary titled Storie di ieri on the subject of Don Pietro Morosini, a Catholic priest who had been shot by the Nazis for helping the partisan movement in Italy, and began meeting with a number of screenwriters in Rome shortly after Germany abandoned the city.

The facilities at Cinecittà Studios were unavailable at the time, as they had been damaged in the war and were then currently requisitioned by Allied forces to house displaced persons.

After a few days of shooting production had stopped due to lack of cash, and Rossellini convinced Venturini to complete the film as a producer, arguing that it was the only way to safeguard his investment.

Geiger had access to film - short-ends and complete rolls that might have become fogged, scratched, or otherwise deemed unfit for use - that the Signal Corps regularly threw away.

[9] In order to authentically portray the hardships and poverty of life in Rome under the occupation Rossellini hired mostly non-professional actors; a few exceptions included established stars Fabrizi and Anna Magnani.

"[10] Rossellini relied on traditional devices of melodrama, such as identification of the film's central characters[citation needed] and a clear distinction between the primary good and evil ones.

[11] Unlike films made in the early years of the war (when Italy was Germany's ally under Mussolini) that depicted the British, Americans, Greeks, Russians and other allied countries, as well as Ethiopians, communists, and partisans, as antagonists, Rome, Open City was one of the early Italian films of the war to depict the struggle as being against the Germans and Italian fascists.

The story of the film's journey from Italy to the United States is recounted in Federico Fellini's autobiographical essay "Sweet Beginnings" published in 1996.

Rod E. Geiger, a U.S. Army private stationed in Rome, met Rossellini and Fellini after catching them tapping into the power supply used to illuminate the G.I.

[12] In the book The Adventures of Roberto Rossellini, author Tag Gallagher credits Geiger at age 29 as the "man who more than any single individual was to make him and the new Italian cinema famous around the world.

Rome Open City grossed an astonishing $3 million at the U.S. box office, an unprecedented number for an Italian movie playing mainly in small, independent theaters.

Robert Burgoyne called it "the perfect exemplar of this mode of cinematic creation [neorealism] whose established critical definition was given by André Bazin".

Marcello Pagliero is excellent too, as the resistance leader, and Anna Magnani brings humility and sincerity to the role of the woman who is killed.

The site's critics' consensus reads: "Open City fills in the familiar contours of its storyline with three-dimensional characters and a narrative depth that add up to a towering – and still powerfully resonant – cinematic achievement.

"[26] The difficulties encountered by the director and crew before and during the shooting of "Rome, Open City" are dramatized in the 1996 film Celluloide by Carlo Lizzani and in it Massimo Ghini plays the role of Rossellini.