In Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), Marcello Mastroianni appeared opposite Sophia Loren in three separate stories, directed by Vittorio De Sica, each set in a different part of Italy. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the pairing of Mastroianni and Loren became one of Italian cinema’s great partnerships.
Across the three episodes Mastroianni moves from Naples to Milan to Rome, playing men who are variously poor, respectable and compromised, each time with the same easy charm. The film’s famous final episode, in which Loren performs a striptease for him, is still remembered as a high point of their work together. It is a showcase not for one character, but for an actor’s range, and for a partnership built on timing, warmth and mutual delight.