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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, Shoeshine stands 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

Finally watched my MOC DVD of this last year and enjoyed it a lot. Glad such a canonical work is finally available stateside

For fans of Shoeshine, I would highly recommend Radiance’s new release of Pietro Germi’s 1956 Italian melodrama The Railroad Man, which I watched for the first time last night.

The award winning documentary SCIUSCIA' 70 is really worthwhile & a valuable addition to this essential release... I have it already on a standalone Istituto Luce DVD... Trailer with English subs here...

The caps of the Blu-ray don't even look particularly good for a 4K resto. I'm surprised Criterion sprang for a UHD for this one.

Matt wrote: Sat Aug 16, 2025 1:09 am The caps of the Blu-ray don't even look particularly good for a 4K resto. I'm surprised Criterion sprang for a UHD for this one.

Maybe Criterion is realizing that people are becoming more inclined to buy if it's UHD & holding off if it's just blu-ray. They also might be realizing the appeal their UHDs have to the international market, particularly when there's no blu-rays available.