Paolo Bonacelli

Acting

Paolo Bonacelli

Born — Died

1937-02-28 — 2025-10-08

Place of birth

Rome, Italy

Known for

Acting

Credits

70 titles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Paolo Bonacelli (February 28, 1939 - October 8 2025) was an Italian actor. He is best known for his performance as The Duke de Blangis in Pasolini's notorious Salò (1975). He can also be seen in Midnight Express (1978) and Caligula (1979), in which he plays the role of Cassius Chaerea. He also co-starred with Roberto Benigni in the films Johnny Stecchino and Night on Earth, both from 1991. Description above from the Wikipedia article Paolo Bonacelli, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

Mission: Impossible III poster
6.8

Retired from active duty, and training recruits for the Impossible Mission Force, agent Ethan Hunt faces the toughest foe of his career: Owen Davian, an international broker of arms and information, who's as cunning as he is ruthless. Davian emerges to threaten Hunt and all that he holds dear – including the woman Hunt loves.

Mission: Impossible III

2006

In the Hand of Dante poster
5.3

A Vatican priest discovers Dante's original Divine Comedy manuscript. When asked to authenticate it, writer Nick Tosches steals it, while a parallel story follows Dante's quest to create his masterpiece.

In the Hand of Dante

2026

The American poster
6.0

Dispatched to a small Italian town to await further orders, assassin Jack embarks on a double life that may be more relaxing than is good for him.

The American

2010

Caligula poster
6.0

After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.

Caligula

1979

Midnight Express poster
7.4

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of a country. The courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".

Midnight Express

1978

The Commander poster
6.9

One dark night during the early phases of WWII, the Italian Royal Navy submarine Cappellini sinks an armed merchant ship sailing with lights out. At that moment, its commander Salvatore Todaro makes a decision that was destined to go down in history: to save the 26 shipwrecked Belgians who otherwise would have drowned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and disembark them at the nearest safe harbor. To make room for them on board his submarine, he is forced to navigate on the surface of the water for three days, visible to the enemy forces and endangering his life and that of his men.

The Commander

2023

Film credits

2020s · 4 titles

2000s · 3 titles

1990s · 14 titles

Night on Earth poster
7.5

A quintet of cabbies in five cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.

Night on Earth

1991

The Stendhal Syndrome poster
5.5

A young policewoman slowly goes insane while tracking down an elusive serial rapist/killer through Italy when she herself becomes a victim of the brutal man's obsession.

The Stendhal Syndrome

1996

Johnny Stecchino poster
7.3

Good hearted but not very wordly-wise, Dante is happy driving the school bus for a group of mentally handicapped children, while feeling he is somehow missing out on life and love. So he is very excited when after nearly being knocked down by her car he meets Maria, who seems immediately enamoured of him. He is soon invited to her sumptuous Palermo villa, little suspecting that this is part of a plot. He bears an amazing likeness to Maria's stool-pigeon gangster husband and it would be convenient for them if the mobster, in the shape of Dante, was seen to be dead and buried.

Johnny Stecchino

1991

Abraham poster
7.2

Rather than choosing a great leader or king, God chooses Abraham, an elderly shepherd from Mesopotamia, as the way to establish his Covenant with mankind... A man of great faith, Abraham continues to believe in God even when He seems to have abandoned him.

Abraham

1993

Only One Survived poster
8.0

Four buddies set out on a three-week deep-sea fishing holiday in the Amazon and run into trouble.

Only One Survived

1990

Ciao, Professore! poster
7.2

A bureaucratic snafu sends Marco Tullio Sperelli, a portly, middle-aged northern Italian, to teach third grade in a poor town outside Naples

Ciao, Professore!

1992

The Teddy Bear poster
4.7

A renowned gynecologist receives anonymous death threats that seem to be related to his troubled past.

The Teddy Bear

1994

Touch and Die poster
5.0

An American newsman in Rome begins to investigate the appearance of several corpses found throughout Europe with their hands cut off. He soon uncovers not only plots of plutonium theft, but also of nuclear arms deals and dark political schemes.

Touch and Die

1991

Christmas Vacation '95 poster
5.4

Two Italians are on holiday in Aspen in Colorado. The first one is Lorenzo whose daughter is crazy about Luke Perry (Beverly Hills 90210 actor) and wants to meet him at all costs. The second one wants to win back his wife who has left him because of his gambling problem.

Christmas Vacation '95

1995

Dirty Linen poster
6.2

The Razzi family owns a small factory of sweets in Macerata. Their desire to enlarge their business to cope with the new Unified European Market brings to a string of fatal mistakes that will ultimately doom their wealth.

Dirty Linen

1999

Mille bolle blu poster
6.7

The movie tells the little stories of a group of families who live in the same building in Rome as seen from the eyes of Sandrino, a little kid who is awaiting for a total eclipse of the sun, that really happened during summer of '61, and it was was fully visible from Italy. He sees his family life, a young girl who is about to marry a man she doesn't love, an old man who has just died and whose relatives fight for his inheritance, a blind trumpet player who hopes to recover, his little friends...

Mille bolle blu

1993

Bakunin's Son poster
7.0

Based on a novel of Segio Atzeni. By a lot of interviews, usualy contradictory, it discovers the many lifes of Tullio Saba, a Sardinian miner, thief, singer, union organizer, rebel...

Bakunin's Son

1997

Once a Year, Every Year poster
9.0

A man enters a restaurant in Trastevere, in the suburbs of Rome, and asks the owner to cook him the superb bass he has just been given. He wants it served at the dinner gathering like every year the group of inseparable friends he is a member of. The others join him. The last to come is a lawyer who has just liquidated the succession of the one that will be missing tonight. The deceased leaves them an estate in Umbria provided they live there in community. What will the friends decide during this dinner like no other?

Once a Year, Every Year

1994

Flight from Paradise poster
8.5

In a futuristic society, an old man tells the legend of a strange medal to two children. In flashback, we learn that after a nuclear catastrophe, two teenagers were living in an artificial paradise, maintained by electronic means, and once decide to leave that shelter and escape using that same medal - a mini video-disc - in search of outer-space freedom.

Flight from Paradise

1990

1980s · 14 titles

Le Guignolo poster
6.0

After the failure of his recent criminal exploits, international con artist Alexandre Dupré sets off for Venice to try to dupe some Japanese business men into buying a fake copy of a stolen Caneletto. On the aeroplane, a stranger asks him to look after his briefcase until after they have landed. Alexandre agrees, but the stranger is shot dead soon after and Alexandre himself becomes the target of enemy agents who are keen to recover the briefcase...

Le Guignolo

1980

Nothing Left to Do But Cry poster
7.7

Two 20th-century friends accidentally stumble into the year 1492, where they meet a charming teen and try to alter history.

Nothing Left to Do But Cry

1984

Rimini Rimini poster
4.8

Funny, entertaining comedy with a few storylines. All of them have one thing in common - a resort town of Rimini in Italy.

Rimini Rimini

1987

Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime) poster
6.0

After Annunziata opens up a hostel with her friend Antonio, she is saved from being raped by a Camorra boss as the gangster is suddenly killed. The killer escapes before Annunziata is able to see who it was. Following this murder are several others, and always with the same “signature” — a syringe in one of the testicles of the victims. As the gangsters continue to be killed off, the identity of the killer – or killers – slowly becomes obvious.

Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime)

1986

Francesco poster
6.5

The life of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) as related by followers who gather after his death to tell stories so that Leone can record them: a privileged and virile youth, a prisoner of war, an heir who turns away from his father and gives all to the poor, a beggar for others, and an inspiration to friends who accept the Gospels' life of poverty.

Francesco

1989

The Persian Lamb Coat poster
5.0

Piero arrives in Paris from Luino after having won a pool tournament with friends. In the train he meets the famous place Ramazzini and has so many incidents that culminated with his arrest and the confiscation by the commissioner Juvet. Released, find randomly hospitality at the madame Lenormand and know the great painter Valentine. Both women are tied up, as a wife and lover, Maurice, in prison for robbery. A day Piero wears a mistake and the coat of astrakhan, Maurice, and then...

The Persian Lamb Coat

1980

Lenin: The Train poster
6.4

March/April 1917. The first world war is already a couple year to pace. A sealed train with Russian emigrants keeps on driving from Zürich Germany and Sweden to Sint-Petersburg. The outlaws stand under the guidance of Vladimir J. Lenin. Two senior officers support the revolutionary bomb "to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Yet there are some unpleasant clashes between Socialists and enthusiastic workers who are worried about the war. During train travel there comes an end to Lenin's affair with the gracious Inessa, and his wife Nadja is prepared take back him. The triumphant entrance in St. Petersburg will exceed all expectations....

Lenin: The Train

1988

Love Sins poster
4.2

A biographical feature on the Italian literary giant, Gabriele D'Annunzio. Set in late 19th century Italy and France when the artistic style, Decadentismo, was beginning to take shape, the film focuses on D'Annunzio's life when he was already an established poet and journalist in Rome. A staunch opponent of democracy and commoners, he searches for passion and pleasure among the wealthy and noble. One such noblewoman Elvira Fraternali Leoni, serves as the muse for his first novel - The Pleasure (Il Piacere).

Love Sins

1987

The Mystery of Oberwald poster
5.8

A man, mirroring the assassinated King, infiltrates a castle to kill the Queen but hesitates, leading to a deadly dare and revelation of shared history.

The Mystery of Oberwald

1981

Topo Galileo poster
5.8

A pacifist pest controller tries to catch the rat infesting a nuclear power plant.

Topo Galileo

1988

La moglie ingenua e il marito malato poster
10.0

A thief caught red-handed tells the landlord a very strange fact that happened to him looking through the keyhole of another apartment where he was stealing.

La moglie ingenua e il marito malato

1989

The Knight, Death and the Devil poster
8.5

A family of the three fall into a dark and disturbing nightmare after meeting the mysterious Orlok and the seductive punk girl Patty. Adapted from the 1926 novella Dream Story by the Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler.

The Knight, Death and the Devil

1983

The Commissioner poster
9.0

In the basement of a hypothetical ministry, a man has set up a public office where he intends, for a fee, to solve any bureaucratic problem. His life becomes complicated the day he realizes that someone is persistently spying on him.

The Commissioner

1983

Henry IV poster
6.5

Deranged after a fall from a horse, a man has lived for twenty years in a castle laboring under the delusion that he is Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. His psychiatrist concocts an elaborate scheme to shock him out of his medieval reverie.

Henry IV

1984

1970s · 18 titles

Caligula poster
6.0

After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.

Caligula

1979

Midnight Express poster
7.4

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of a country. The courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".

Midnight Express

1978

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom poster
6.3

Four corrupted fascist libertines round up 9 teenage boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual torture.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

1976

Nest of Vipers poster
5.0

A background of rising fascism in Venice in 1930s. A music-student, Matthias, mixes with the town's bourgeoisie and falls in love with a mature teacher, Carla, the mother of his friend Renato, and then with his young colleague, Elena.

Nest of Vipers

1978

Giordano Bruno poster
6.4

Fleeing from his enemies in the Catholic Church, the free thinking philosopher, poet and scientist Giordano Bruno has found some protection in Venice. But the Roman Inquisition, fearing his influence in Europe, wants to bring him on trial for 'heresy'.

Giordano Bruno

1973

Illustrious Corpses poster
6.8

A detective is assigned to investigate the mysterious murders of some Supreme Court judges.

Illustrious Corpses

1976

The Inheritance poster
6.3

In 1880 Rome, a patriarch closes the family bakery. His ambitious daughter-in-law manipulates her brothers-in-law to prevent their father's remarriage, securing her inheritance.

The Inheritance

1976

Christ Stopped at Eboli poster
7.2

In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation.

Christ Stopped at Eboli

1979

Beyond Fear poster
6.7

A group of outlaws takes a man's wife and child hostage. He must walk a fine line between working with the police to rescue his family and not angering the kidnappers to the point where they might hurt or kill them.

Beyond Fear

1975

Maddalena poster
5.2

The love story between a free-spirited girl and a priest.

Maddalena

1971

The Murri Affair poster
6.6

Based on a true incident, this tells the story of a troubled young man who kills his sister's reactionary, violent and abusive husband and is eventually arrested for the murder. However, the dead husband happened to be a member of the Italian nobility, and the trial starts to turn into more of a prosecution of the defendant's socialist politics and the activities of his father, a well known liberal social reformer, than the actual crime itself.

The Murri Affair

1974

La banca di Monate poster
7.0

Lago Maggiore, 1949: a failed bank manager, to revive his economic situation, tries to combine a marriage of interest for his daughter. Failing to do so, he then tries a robbery in his own bank.

La banca di Monate

1976

Evil Thoughts poster
5.5

Mario Marani is a well-respected lawyer in late 70s Milan, with a wonderful wife and a high social life. But Mario has a problem: every time he sees his wife talking to one of their friends he immediately visualises them in a hot affair. His jealousy spirals out of control, until a young man who hides inside their flat crosses his path.

Evil Thoughts

1976

Milarepa poster
6.7

After a car accident, a professor, trapped and awaiting help, hears a student recount the life of Milarepa. The tale unfolds in three parts: dark vengeance, spiritual discipline, and ultimate transcendence, reflecting a journey of inner transformation.

Milarepa

1974

Year One poster
5.3

Rossellini’s biopic of the postwar Christian Democrat leader, Alcide De Gaspari, who was responsible for keeping the Communists out of power in the years that followed the fall of fascism.

Year One

1974

This Is the Night poster
7.0

Based on a book by Juan Carlo Onetti, the film tells the story of Ossario, a hunted revolutionary leader who sees his comrades die one after another.

This Is the Night

1977

Good News poster
6.2

A disaffected media executive spends his days watching violent programming on the television screens in his office and his evenings neglecting his frustrated wife at home. The monotonicity is disturbed when he is contacted by an old friend who confides in him he is being threatened by mysterious assassins.

Good News

1979

A Prostitute Serving the Public and in Compliance with the Laws of the State poster
4.4

A hooker, mother of two, leaves her abusing husband for a young boxer. On the street she gets assaulted and beaten by pimps.

A Prostitute Serving the Public and in Compliance with the Laws of the State

1971

1960s · 4 titles

Series credits

Origins of the Mafia poster
8.0

Journey back more than 400 years to 16th century Sicily, where the small Italian islands have fallen victim to corruption, intimidation, extortion, and brutality.

Origins of the Mafia

1976

I promessi sposi poster
7.1

Set between 1629 and 1631. Renzo Tramaglino and Lucia Mondella are Lombard peasants forced to separate and endure a thousand vicissitudes because of the bullying of the squire Don Rodrigo. However, during their journey they will find various people willing to help them, from Friar Cristoforo to the Innominato, from Federigo Borromeo to Donna Prassede.

I promessi sposi

1989

I grandi camaleonti poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

I grandi camaleonti

1964

Furore il vento della speranza poster
7.5

No synopsis available yet.

Furore il vento della speranza

2014

Lenin... The Train poster
7.0

In March 1917, amidst World War I, a sealed train carries Russian revolutionaries, led by Lenin, from Germany to St. Petersburg. Along the journey, political tensions and personal dramas unfold, culminating in a historic arrival.

Lenin... The Train

1988

Charlemagne, le prince à cheval poster
8.8

Charlemagne, le prince à cheval is a 1993 television miniseries about the life of Charlemagne. It consists of five episodes and covers the period from the death of his father, Pepin the Short in AD 768 until Charlemagne's corronation as the first Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, AD 800. However, there is a minor chronological anachronism: in an earlier episode, we see Widukind, the king of the Saxons surrender and convert to Christianity, which didn't happen until AD 803. This program was directed by Clive Donner and based primarily on the contemporary biography of Charlemagne written by Einhard, who knew Charlemagne personally.

Charlemagne, le prince à cheval

1994

Abraham poster
7.2

The life of Abraham, the most tested servant of God and the father of Judaism, spanning from the patriarch's quest for the Promised Land to the sacrifice of his son, Isaac.

Abraham

1993

Madame Bovary poster
7.0

In 19th-century France, doctor's wife Emma Bovary seeks to escape her dull provincial life through various extramarital affairs and extravagant spending, leading to tragic consequences.

Madame Bovary

1978

No artwork available
8.0

Alice Mancini, the young German wife of the Italian ambassador in Berlin, Mario Mancini, unexpectedly meets her husband's younger brother Vittorio who is presumed dead. Vittorio makes several mysterious references to the fate of Mario's first wife Alma, who apparently committed suicide ten years previously. Her curiosity aroused, Alice starts doing some research - but gets no answers either from her husband or his family. Several warnings later, when Alice still won't stop digging up the past , she suddenly finds herself the subject of an evil and complex intrigue: she is suspected of murder, and is forced to flee.

Alice on the Run

1998

I Remember Nelson poster
4.6

Vice Adm. Horatio Nelson's remarkable naval career and troubled personal affairs are brought to life in this miniseries, which tells his famous story through the narratives of those who knew him best.

I Remember Nelson

1982