The 1948 film Bicycle Thieves is a dark and sad tale of a man losing all that he holds dear. It hearkens back to other classic tales like It’s A Wonderful Life or Les Miserable. But Bicycle Thieves tells the tale in a unique way that is both relatable and novel at the same time.

Vittorio De Sica’s film is adapted from a novel that was only two years old at the time. Bicycle Thieves isn’t just a standard post-war story of poverty and wealth. It’s a film that uses an interesting noir setting for what many would call a small inconvenience. The loss of a bicycle. But what that bicycle represents is the core of the film. The writers have created a man who has banked his entire future on one piece of equipment. And then show the great lengths he’s willing to go in order to get it back.

The Stolen Bicycle

The film begins with the protagonist, Antonio Ricci, seeking work to support his wife and child. He is eventually given a job painting signs but the job requires one catch. A reliable form of transportation by way of a bicycle. Antonio and his wife sell their last remaining possessions, the sheets on their bed, in order to get his bike out of a pawn shop. An item they no doubt pawned in order to feed their family.

All seems well for Antonio until his bicycle is stolen by a group of thieves. Ricci races down the street after the thief but the thief has an entire crew who have meticulously planned the heist. He alone is no match for their well-contrived plot and is forced to watch in defeat as his bicycle, and dreams of a better life, ride off into the crowded busy street.

The Stolen Life

The framing device is interesting here and admittedly, there are some themes that are a bit lost on me. Be it either the time period or the foreign nature of the film, there are certain aspects of the film that did not totally resonate with me. Or at least resonate with me the way the filmmakers intended. I’m aware that bicycles were a common form of transportation in the 40s, but I don’t know enough about the 1940s in Rome to grasp the impact of losing a bicycle fully. What I do know about the film, is what the film tells me. That for Antonio, losing a bicycle is losing everything. He cannot continue on with his job, he cannot provide for his family, and there is no other form of work available. He had one shot and it was all riding on this bicycle.

It’s a framing device that I enjoyed and I love how the writers are able to hinge everything on one piece of equipment. After Antonio’s bike is stolen, the film takes on an almost noir-type narrative. Antonio searches far and wide for his bicycle and ends up in some of the darkest corners of Rome. Instead of centering around a murder or major crime, it’s centered around a bicycle theft.

The Loss of a Bicycle

Looking at this through a 2025 lens, the use of a bicycle I find fascinating. Bicycles are now, at least in the United States, one of the first large gifts of note usually given to a child. A new bike is often the first big Christmas or Birthday gift a child gets that they can remember receiving. Watching this film it’s hard not to paint Anotnio’s loss in this same light. The stakes for him are obviously much larger, but this symbolism of a child’s toy being stolen, and the result being the loss of everything, is hard to ignore.

As a man, Antonio’s bicycle is everything. It’s his livelihood and the opportunity to make a better life for himself and his family. As a kid, a bike may be their most prized possession. Something that allows them a certain freedom they’ve never had before. The ability to leave and go farther away from the house than they ever could on foot. For that to be taken from a child is devastating. And I couldn’t help but see the similarities in this film.

Lack of Redemption

There are a few plot points in this film that were criticized at the time of its release and they are points I’m not well-versed enough to make a strong stance on. At one point Antonio finds the thief and the thief retreats into a brothel. When Antonio threatens to call the police on the young thief, the entire town comes to the thief’s aid. Offering him alibi’s and ganging up on the films hero.

While this may have been considered inflammatory at the time for the way the film represented Italian family dynamics, I read it as just another major hurdle Antonio couldn’t surmount. There are times in life when, no matter how good or noble your intentions are, even if you are the one wronged, there is no way you can win. Antonio finds himself in this exact situation throughout the film. He’s down and finds no way to pull himself back up. He only finds people willing to kick him while he’s down.

Abandon All Hope

The film ends with Antonio attempting to retrieve his life through the same means in which he lost it. He steals someone else’s bicycle. It’s the only logical next move for Antonio to commit after realizing that there will be no justice for the crime committed against him. Unfortunately, Antonio is a crummy thief and he’s quickly caught. But rather than take him to the authorities, the mob who chased him down let him go. Antonio, defeated, takes his son, and goes home as the film ends.

It’s a sad and disappointing ending but one that says a lot. There is no happy ending in Bicycle Thieves. Our hero ends the film worse off than when he started. And even turning to a life of crime can’t get him out of this situation. I read this ending as the final gut punch to Antonio. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and there just isn’t anything they can do about it.

The Bicycle Thief

I had a bike stolen once and it’s a very frustrating situation. Obviously the stakes weren’t as dire as Antonio’s but still, you realize pretty quickly that there is little you can do in that situation. There is nothing law enforcement can do, nothing you can do. It’s just a bad situation where you are the victim and the chance of justice is slim to none.

Other films posit a way out of these high stakes. Last year’s Rebel Ridge is a super fun movie but one that puts a Hollywood sheen on injustice. A man goes up against an all-powerful local law enforcement and is able to win. It’s a power fantasy but unfortunately, one that doesn’t exist in the real world. Bicycle Thieves gives us a real-world situation and offers no Hollywood hero or theme of justice. Just a sad ending to a real victim.

Feast and Famine

This theme I feel is perfectly surmised in the scene where Antonio takes his son out to lunch. They order wine and sandwiches while across the restaurant a wealthy family orders a feast. Antonio knows this meal is a treat and not something they should be indulging themself in. His son keeps looking at another young boy at the adjacent table but his father tells him, we’ll never be like that. No matter how hard we work, how much good we do, we’ll never have a seat at that table.

What the director is saying here is that for some life just comes easier. Sure, we may all theoretically have the same opportunities as everyone else, but we all start on very different rungs of the same ladder. Some start much higher, and others start at the bottom. And even when some manage to climb to that bottom rung, it can be taken from you with no way of getting it back. The complex nature of poverty and social status is too grand for a 1948 film to create a solution for. But it can boil this complex issue down to a digestible allegory. A stolen bicycle.