Press Release Criterion Press Release: Shoeshine (1946) (4k UHD Combo) (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

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An international breakthrough for neorealism, Vittorio De Sica’s Academy Award–winning film is an indelible fable of innocence lost amid the hardscrabble reality of 1940s Italy. On the streets of Rome, two boys—best friends Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smordoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi)—set out to raise the money to buy a horse by shining shoes. When they are inadvertently caught up in a robbery and sent to a brutal juvenile detention center, their loyalty to each other is severely tested. A devastating portrait of economic struggle made all the more haunting by its child’s-eye perspective, Shoeshinestands as one of the defining achievements of postwar Italian filmmaking.

FILM INFO​

• Italy
• 1946
• 91 minutes
• Black & White
• 1.37:1
• Italian
• Spine #1272
  
  

  4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES​

  • New 4K digital restoration, undertaken by The Film Foundation and the Cineteca di Bologna, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
  • Sciuscià 70 (2016), a documentary by Mimmo Verdesca, made to mark the film’s seventieth anniversary
  • New program on Shoeshine and children in Italian neorealism featuring film scholars Paola Bonifazio and Catherine O’Rawe
  • Radio broadcast from 1946 featuring director Vittorio De Sica
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar David Forgacs and “Shoeshine, Joe?,” a 1945 photo-documentary by De Sica
    
    New cover by F. Ron Miller
    
    August 19, 2025

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Thank you for supporting HTF when you preorder using the link below. As an Amazon Associate HTF earns from qualifying purchases. If you are using an adblocker you will not see link.

https://www.amazon.com/Shoeshine-Criterion-Collection-4K-UHD/dp/B0F96RDLT9

 

[bujaki]

An important film in the neo-realist movement. Will be good to see it in an improved transfer.

 

[titch]

An important film in the neo-realist movement. Will be good to see it in an improved transfer.

Danny Peary called it "One of the most powerful social dramas in cinema history".

 

[Matt Hough]

Shoeshine was the first neo-realist film I ever saw, in a double feature with (as it was then called) The Bicycle Thief. Both films were profoundly affecting and are well worth getting to know.