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1948 film by Vittorio De Sica

Bicycle Thieves , also known as The Bicycle Thief, is a 1948 Italian neorealist drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It follows the story of a poor father searching in post World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family. Adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini from the 1946 novel by Luigi Bartolini, and starring Lamberto Maggiorani as the desperate father and Enzo Staiola as his plucky young son, Bicycle Thieves received an Academy Honorary Award (most outstanding foreign language film) in 1950, and in 1952 was deemed the greatest film of all time by Sight & Sound magazine's poll of filmmakers and critics; fifty years later another poll organized by the same magazine ranked it sixth among the greatest ever films. In the 2012 version of the list the film ranked 33rd among critics and 10th among directors. The film was also cited by Turner Classic Movies as one of the most influential films in cinema history, and it is considered part of the canon of classic cinema. The film was voted number 3 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo, and number 4 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. It was also included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."

In post World War II Rome, Antonio Ricci is desperate for work to support his wife Maria, his son Bruno and his small baby. He is offered a job posting advertising bills but tells Maria that he cannot accept because the job requires a bicycle. Maria resolutely strips the bed of her dowry bedsheetsprized possessions for a poor familyand takes them to the pawn shop, where they bring enough to redeem Antonio's pawned bicycle. On his first day of work, Antonio is atop a ladder when a young man snatches the bicycle. Antonio gives chase but is thrown off the trail by the thief's confederates. The police file Antonio's complaint but say that there is little they can do. Advised that stolen goods often surface at the Piazza Vittorio market, Antonio goes there with several friends and Bruno. They find a bicycle frame that might be Antonio's, but the venders refuse to allow them to examine the serial number. They call over a carabiniere, who orders the venders to allow him to read the serial number. It does not match that of the missing bicycle, but the officer won't allow them to examine it for themselves. At the Porta Portese market, Antonio and Bruno spot the thief with an old man. The thief eludes them and the old man feigns ignorance. They follow him into a church where he too slips away from them. Antonio pursues the thief into a brothel, whose denizens eject them. In the street, hostile neighbors gather as Antonio accuses the thief, who conveniently falls into a fit for which the crowd blames Antonio. Bruno fetches a policeman, who searches the thief's apartment without success. The policeman tells Antonio the case is weakAntonio has no witnesses and the neighbors are certain to provide the thief with an alibi. Antonio and Bruno leave in despair amid jeers and threats from the crowd. Their way home takes them by the Stadio Nazionale PNF football stadium. Antonio sees an unattended bicycle near a doorway and after much anguished indecision, instructs Bruno to take the tram to a stop nearby and wait. Antonio circles the unattended bicycle and jumps on it. Instantly the hue and cry is raised and Brunowho has missed the tramis stunned to see his father pursued, surrounded and pulled from the bicycle. As Antonio is being muscled toward the police station, the bicycle's owner notices Bruno in tears and, in a moment of compassion, tells the others to release Antonio. Antonio and Bruno then walk off slowly amid a buffeting crowd. Antonio fights back tears and Bruno takes his hand.

The original Italian title is Ladri di biciclette. It literally translates into English as "thieves of bicycles"; both ladri and biciclette are plural. In Bartolini's novel, the title referred to a post war culture of rampant thievery and disrespect for civil order, countered only by an inept police force and indifferent allied occupiers.

When Bicycle Thieves was released in Italy, it was viewed with hostility and as portraying Italians in a negative way. Italian critic Guido Aristarco praised it, but also complained that "sentimentality might at times take the place of artistic emotion." Fellow Italian neorealist film director Luchino Visconti criticized the film, saying that it was a mistake to use a professional actor to dub over Lamberto Maggiorani's dialogue. Contemporary reviews elsewhere were positive. Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, lauded the film and its message in his review. He wrote, "Again the Italians have sent us a brilliant and devastating film in Vittorio De Sica's rueful drama of modern city life, The Bicycle Thief. Widely and fervently heralded by those who had seen it abroad (where it already has won several prizes at various film festivals), this heart tearing picture of frustration, which came to [the World Theater] yesterday, bids fair to fulfill all the forecasts of its absolute triumph over here. For once more the talented De Sica, who gave us the shattering Shoeshine, that desperately tragic demonstration of juvenile corruption in post war Rome, has laid hold upon and sharply imaged in simple and realistic terms a majorindeed, a fundamental and universaldramatic theme. It is the isolation and loneliness of the little man in this complex social world that is ironically blessed with institutions to comfort and protect mankind". In 1999, Chicago Sun Times film reviewer Roger Ebert wrote that "The Bicycle Thief is so well entrenched as an official masterpiece that it is a little startling to visit it again after many years and realize that it is still alive and has strength and freshness. Given an honorary Oscar in 1949, routinely voted one of the greatest films of all time, revered as one of the foundation stones of Italian neorealism, it is a simple, powerful film about a man who needs a job". Ebert added the film to his "The Great Movies" list. In 2020, A. O. Scott praised the film in an essay entitled "Why You Should Still Care About 'Bicycle Thieves'." Bicycle Thieves is a fixture on the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound critics' and directors' polls of the greatest films ever made. The film ranked 1st and 7th on critics' poll in 1952 and 1962 respectively. It ranked 11th on the magazine's 1992 Critics' poll, 45th in 2002 Critics' Poll and 6th on the 2002 Directors' Top Ten Poll. It was slightly lower in the 2012 directors' poll, 10th and 33rd on the 2012 critics' poll. The Village Voice ranked the film at number 37 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. The film was voted at No. 99 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 2008. The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited this movie as one of his 100 favorite films. As of 2008 the picture was on the Vatican's Best Films List for portraying humanistic values. Bicycle Thieves has continued to gain very high praise from contemporary critics, with the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reporting 99% of 70 reviews as of April 2022 as positive, with an average rating of 9.20/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "An Italian neorealism exemplar, Bicycle Thieves thrives on its non flashy performances and searing emotion."

Many directors have cited the film as a major influence including Satyajit Ray, Ken Loach, Giorgio Mangiamele, Bimal Roy, Anurag Kashyap, Balu Mahendra, Vetrimaaran and Basu Chatterjee. The film was noteworthy for film directors of the Iranian New Wave, such as Jafar Panahi and Dariush Mehrjui. The film was one of 39 foreign films recommended by Martin Scorsese to Colin Levy. It was parodied in the film The Icicle Thief (1989). The film features in the 1992 Robert Altman film The Player. In this film Griffin Mill (played by Tim Robbins), a Hollywood studio executive, tracks screenwriter David Kahane (played by Vincent D'Onofrio) to a screening of Bicycle Thieves, and stages what he represents as a chance meeting with Kahane. Norman Loftis's film Messenger (1994) is considered to be a remake of Bicycle Thieves. The episode "The Thief" from the American comedy drama series Master of None is heavily influenced by Bicycle Thieves.