--- title: "Mondo Cane" year: 1962 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/mondo-cane" fi1m_id: "mondo-cane" imdb_id: "tt0057318" tmdb_id: 32688 wikidata_id: "Q1152330" fi1m_score: 58 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-09-26T14:34:44.319904+00:00" updated: "2026-09-26T14:34:56.413808+00:00" region: "EC" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Mondo Cane (1962) Directed by Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco E. Prosperi · 1h 45m · Documentary, Horror ## Identity Mondo Cane - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/mondo-cane - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** mondo-cane - **IMDb ID:** tt0057318 - **TMDB ID:** 32688 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1152330 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057318/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/32688, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1152330 **Fi1m score: 58** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* A hundred minutes of contempt for everyone on earth, scored like a honeymoon > The film that named a genre is cut with real skill and scored with a tune far kinder than its pictures. It is also cruel, condescending and impossible to take at its word, and sixty years have not made it any more trustworthy. ## Synopsis A dog is dragged on a chain into a kennel of barking strays while a narrator (Stefano Sibaldi) explains, in the tone of a tour guide, that the title means a dog’s world. In Italy, a statue of Rudolph Valentino is unveiled in his home town, and the actor Rossano Brazzi is mobbed in the street by women who tear at his shirt. The directors Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara and Franco E. Prosperi then carry their cameras to a Pacific island where it is the women who chase the men, to a pet cemetery in Pasadena where mourners weep over their dogs, and to a restaurant where dogs are on the menu. Each place is cut hard against the next, and the commentary supplies the joke. ## Review Three Italians, Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara and Franco E. Prosperi, took cameras around the world at the start of the 1960s and came home with 105 minutes of things they thought would shock a cinema audience. Some of it is beautiful, some of it is unbearable, and all of it is arranged to tell you that people are ridiculous wherever you find them. The film gave its name to a whole genre of shock documentaries, the mondo film, and it is cleverer than nearly everything that followed. It is not much kinder. We would not send you to it, but if you go, you will not forget it. The method is the cut, and Jacopetti, who edited the film himself, is good at it. Rossano Brazzi is chased down an Italian street by women; cut to a Pacific island where the women chase the men. Californians weep at a pet cemetery in Pasadena; cut to a restaurant where dogs are hanging from hooks. Geese in Strasbourg are force-fed for their livers; cut to a village where girls are force-fed to fatten them for marriage. Every sequence is a set-up for the next, and the punchline is always the same: you think you are better than these people, and you are not. Antonio Climati and Benito Frattari shoot it in bright, saturated colour, the funnel going down the goose’s throat in close-up and the crowds from above so they look like insects. Riz Ortolani and Nino Oliviero wrote the score, and the main theme, which later became the song *More*, is one of the loveliest tunes ever put over pictures this ugly. That is the trick. The music forgives everything, the camera forgives nothing, and Stefano Sibaldi’s narration sits between them, dry and amused, reading out atrocities as if they were items on a menu. Here is what it did to us. At Bikini Atoll, the commentary says the nuclear tests have confused the sea turtles so badly that they crawl inland to lay their eggs and die, and Climati and Frattari hold on one turtle on its back in the sand, legs working at nothing. We were horrified. Then we were unsure whether we were allowed to be, because by that point the film had told us so many things it plainly could not know that we no longer believed it about the turtles either. Earlier, in a Hamburg beer hall, we had laughed at drunk Germans singing and falling over, and felt slightly ashamed a moment later when the film moved on to somebody’s funeral and expected us to laugh at that too. The contempt is not spread evenly. When the film mocks Europeans and Americans, they are mocked for what they do. When it films people in New Guinea or Malaysia, the joke is that they are not us, and the narration guesses at their beliefs with a confidence it never earns. The trade press at the time wondered whether two sequences had been staged; we wondered about more than two. Once you have caught a documentary arranging a scene, you cannot trust its funerals. Luis Buñuel pulled the same trick in [*Land Without Bread*](https://film.one/film/land-without-bread) (1933) in under half an hour and with a straighter face, and the mondo films that came after this one kept the cruelty and lost the wit. *Mondo Cane* sits in the middle. The cutting is sharper than in anything Jacopetti’s imitators managed, the music is better than the film deserves, and the intelligence on display is real. It is just an intelligence that has decided the whole species is beneath it, including the audience. If you watch it, watch it at home, where you can stop it, and know that the animals are real and several of them die on camera. It has aged in two directions at once, quainter than it was and nastier than it knew. The song outlived the film, and deserved to. *Fi1m score 58, published 26 September 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Mondo Cane worth watching?** *Mondo Cane* is not a film we would send anyone to, and we scored it 58. Jacopetti's cutting is sharp and Ortolani and Oliviero's theme is lovelier than the pictures deserve, but the film treats everyone it photographs with contempt and asserts things it plainly cannot know. Those interested in how the shock documentary began will find it hard to forget. **How long is Mondo Cane, and what is it rated?** *Mondo Cane* runs 1h 45m. It is a documentary and horror film. **Where can I watch Mondo Cane in Ecuador?** *Mondo Cane* is not on any streaming or rental service in Ecuador at the moment. It is available in 2 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Mondo Cane, and is it suitable for children?** *Mondo Cane* carries no certificate in the UK or US, and it is not for children. Animals are killed on camera, geese are force-fed in close-up, dogs hang from hooks in a restaurant, and a turtle is left dying on its back in the sand. The squeamish should stay away; anyone else should watch at home, where it can be stopped. **How does Mondo Cane compare to Land Without Bread?** *Mondo Cane* and [*Land Without Bread*](https://film.one/film/land-without-bread) play the same trick, a mock-ethnography whose cruelty and staging make you doubt everything it shows, but Buñuel does it in under half an hour with a straighter face. The Italian film has the sharper editing and the better music, and spreads its contempt across the whole world. The earlier film is the tighter of the two and the easier to recommend. **What should I watch after Mondo Cane?** After *Mondo Cane*, try [*Land Without Bread*](https://film.one/film/land-without-bread) (1933, Fi1m 66): Buñuel’s mock-ethnography, the same cruelty and staging, done in twenty-seven minutes. Then [*Sans Soleil*](https://film.one/film/sans-soleil) (1983, Fi1m 82): A travelogue that looks at strangers and wonders, rather than sneers; and [*Koyaanisqatsi*](https://film.one/film/koyaanisqatsi) (1982, Fi1m 82): Pictures and music without narration, so nobody tells you what to think. ### Reviews we read (1) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The review finds the documentary grimly stimulating and credits it with a shattering view of the world. It praises the juxtaposition of its material and the ironic, satirical commentary, while questioning whether two sequences were staged. [Read](https://variety.com/1961/film/reviews/mondo-cane-1200420137/) ## Details - **Director:** Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco E. Prosperi - **Director:** Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco E. Prosperi - **Writer:** Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara - **Cinematography:** Benito Frattari, Antonio Climati - **Editor:** Gualtiero Jacopetti - **Music:** Riz Ortolani, Nino Oliviero - **Producer:** Gualtiero Jacopetti, Angelo Rizzoli - **Cast:** Rossano Brazzi as Self; Stefano Sibaldi as Narrator (voice) - **Runtime:** 1h 45m - **First release (Italy):** 30 March 1962 - **Genres:** Documentary, Horror ## Where to watch in Ecuador Not streaming, renting or buying in Ecuador at the last check. Also available in: ES, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Land Without Bread* (1933), Fi1m 66: Buñuel’s mock-ethnography, the same cruelty and staging, done in twenty-seven minutes — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/land-without-bread.md) - *Sans Soleil* (1983), Fi1m 82: A travelogue that looks at strangers and wonders, rather than sneers — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/sans-soleil.md) - *Koyaanisqatsi* (1982), Fi1m 82: Pictures and music without narration, so nobody tells you what to think — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/koyaanisqatsi.md) - *The Act of Killing* (2012), Fi1m 88: Killers restage their crimes; the staging is the point, and admitted — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-act-of-killing.md) - *Cannibal Holocaust* (1980): Where the mondo film ended up, with Ortolani scoring it again; approach with care --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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