The Leopard

The Leopard is set in Sicily during the 1860s, as Garibaldi's campaign drives the unification of Italy and unsettles the old order. Prince Fabrizio Corbera of Salina, an aristocratic intellectual, watches the upheaval with clear eyes and little hope. When his favourite nephew Tancredi joins the patriotic fighters and later takes a commission under the new royal government, the prince does not condemn him. Instead, he arranges Tancredi's marriage to Angelica, the beautiful daughter of the prosperous but coarse local mayor Don Calogero Sedara, accepting a match beneath the family's rank in order to secure its comfort and influence. Part of the family withdraws to its country estate at Donnafugata, where the collision of the old nobility and the rising bourgeoisie becomes unavoidable.

Luchino Visconti directed and co-wrote the film, the eighth of his fifteen features, arriving between Boccaccio '70 and The Witches. Burt Lancaster plays the prince, with Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli and Romolo Valli heading a large credited cast, and Goffredo Lombardo producing. The film holds a 7.7 rating from around 980 votes on TMDB, while critics rate it 9.2 from 49 reviews — a rare case of professional assessment well exceeding the general audience's.