Hands Over The City (Criterion)

Anchored by a ferocious lead performance from Rod Steiger as a scheming land developer, Francesco Rosi's Hands Over The City moves breathlessly from a cataclysmic building collapse to the backroom negotiations of civic leaders vying for power in the City Council election. Plunging headfirst into the politically driven real-estate speculation that has devastated Naples' civilian landscape, Hands Over The City, which was awarded the Golden Lion at the 1963 Venice Fim Festival, remains a blistering work of social realism.