Using techniques of the documentary film,[1][4] it recounts the criminal career of famous Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano between 1943 and 1950, his death.

In 1945, Giuliano's gang is officially declared part of the military arm of the separatist party MIS which fights for Sicily's independence.

After the 1946 declaration of Sicily's autonomous status, MIS' former militant members are granted amnesty, but Giuliano proceeds with his illegal activities, entangled in kidnappings and blackmail.

Two years later, Pisciotta and the highest ranking members of Giuliano's gang are sentenced to life for the Portella della Ginestra killings.

[11] Film historian Gino Moliterno argued that "Rosi's highly original strategy in this landmark film is to aim at neither an "objective" journalistic documentary nor a fictional recreation but to employ as wide a range of disparate formal and stylistic elements as necessary to conduct a committed search for the truth that becomes, in a sense, its own narrative.