This music filled biopic follows the life of the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso from childhood poverty in Naples to the beginning of his rise to fame.

Turi, having returned to Sicily from abroad, learns that his sister Maruzza is the lover of Cosimo Barrese, a militant of the Movement for the Independence of Sicily, who, abandoned by everyone, has become a bandit. The two would like to get married, but life as an outlaw seems an insurmountable obstacle. Turi asks for revenge on the bandit who has dishonored the family and uses a shady and devious lawyer to drive him into a trap.

Two criminals on the run end up working in a rice field and decide to recruit other workers for their next robbery.

A French fugitive arrives in Genoa, where he becomes entangled with an Italian woman and her daughter.

Aldo Piscitello, a minor government clerk, is forced in 1934 to join the Fascist party. When the war comes, he finds himself able only to talk ineffectually in secret against Mussolini, even as his own son Giovanni is sent into battle. By the end of the war, Aldo has found the courage to stand up for his beliefs, but by then it is too late.

Matthew, a rich nationalist Jew and a contemporary of Jesus, regards the latter as an obstacle in this struggle to free their people from the Roman yoke by means of revolt.

Immediately after the war, bandits attack a truck that is transporting newlyweds Michele and Giovanna and the accountant of an agricultural cooperative charged with bringing four million lire into office.