Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780792856245
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0792856244
Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 01, 2003
Running Time: 107 minutes
Sales Rank: 63954
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Theatrical Release Date: 1982
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
With its subtle mixture of wartime hardship, comedic interludes, and a hallucinatory hint of Italian magic realism, The Night of the Shooting Stars was named the best film of 1982 by the prestigious National Society of Film Critics. Drawing inspiration from their own experiences in Nazi-occupied Italy, the codirecting Taviani brothers (Paolo and Vittorio) remade this feature from their 1954 debut short 'San Miniato, July 1944,' framing its touching yet occasionally vague tale of wartime survival as a bedtime story, told by a loving mother from her memories as a 6-year-old, fleeing her Tuscan village in the closing days of World War II. American liberation is promised within days, but the Nazis have rigged village houses with mines, so the residents of San Martino flee to the countryside, where encounters with fascists are common and deadly. The film's dreamy nostalgia isn't as satisfying as, say, Cinema Paradiso, but it's still a lovely film, filled with quintessentially Italian vitality while proving, as one character observes, that 'even true stories can end well.' --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - 25 years ago...
I was 13 in a small town in the heart of the Tuscan-Emilian Appennines (where I grew up) when this movie held me riveted to the screen...the noises of the night: crickets, snapped twigs; the air thick with heat and the stars shooting heavily through the August night when local lore would make us believe that on one particular night after the festivities of Saint Lawrence (San Lorenzo) on the 10th, any wish, any desire, any yearning, would be granted through any shooting star one would witness in the deep, night skies.
My family was rich with stories of the war, both sad and redeeming at once. The elders spun their tales and the adrenaline rush of close calls or accidents would permeate their nervous gestures that would accompany their life sagas.
This movie is exactly that. It's real. The place, the space, the sounds and the people are the exact embodiement of what was.
My family tales came to life in that movie. I was only 13 but I finally understood everything that had been told to me so that I wouldn't forget.
And I haven't, 25 years on.
I cannot wait to watch it again, kleenex-holding and red-eyed, remembering how so many lives were changed and how many more will still be because of ongoing wars around our planet.
May this be your shooting star for wars to stop, forever.
And make it a must in your video library.
Rating: - One of the Greatest of All Foreign Films
I loved this picture in its initial American release, returned to see it three times theatrically, have watched it six or seven times in the subsequent years, and gave the old MGM dvd to many people, all of whom shared my enthusiasm for such a magical film. The Taviani brothers mix realism and poetry to shattering effect; there are scenes and images, both comic and tragic, that I'll wager will stick with you a lifetime. They certainly have for me. Essential (and immensely pleasurable) viewing.
Rating: - excellent movie, speedy delivery
The movie is first rate and I was delighted with how quickly it arrived.
Rating:  - Love obscure foreign films.....but
This movie is just such a snooze and full of random
strange scenes (not suitable for family viewing - even with children over 16). I ordered because of all the great reviews -
now I just don't understand how this could be enjoyed by
so many. Maybe they have family members from the village..?
Rating: - this movie and "Cinema Paradiso": a choice of dreams
I was stunned by the "editorial review" above stating: "the dreamy nostalgia, while not satisfying as 'Cinema Paradiso'...". How curious for me is the fascination of the american public with "Cinema Paradiso", a mediocre, sentimental telenovela crafted to make people sigh and cry (just above the level of "The English Patient").
"The night of the shooting stars" is not about faked "dreamy nostalgia"; it is the story, beautifully told through the eyes of a young girl, of a Tuscan village in the II world war, during the German occupation (should I say "alliance"...) and the civil war (fascists-partisans), and tells a terrible choice that an entire village had to make.
There are moments in this movie that I will never forget:
- the man who, after spending the night pondering on the choice offered by the Germans (endorsed by the local priest), stands up and says: "sentite, Io dei tedeschi non mi fido..." ("look, I don't trust the Germans..."), and purely on that instinct will act, saving half of the village.
- the eyes and the face of the priest (as a reviewer says below), who realizes what he has done, too late.
- the fantastic battle in the wheat field, seen through the eyes of the girl as one in the Ilyad. And, as a reviewer says below, the people who recognize each other during the fight. Half-dream, half-reality, an incredible moment of cinema.
- the anxious wait for the arrival of the Americans, who seem always around the corner (the cruel joke from somebody, ... Read More
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