Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Brisk
- Intensity
- Moderate
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Moderate
- bawdy
- irreverent
- surreal
- arthouse cinema night
- literary adaptation viewing
What critics said
Critics and audiences broadly regard Pasolini's adaptation as an entertaining, visually exuberant, and provocatively irreverent rendering of Boccaccio's medieval tales.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
The film adapts nine separate stories from Boccaccio's Decameron into a connected anthology.
Several segments center on nuns, priests, monks, confession, deception, and sexual desire, reflecting Pasolini's skepticism toward religious institutions.
The 14th-century stories foreground erotic encounters, bodily humor, crowded urban life, and an unidealized medieval world.
Priests, convents, deathbed rituals, and afterlife speculation are repeatedly placed alongside fraud, lust, theft, and farce.
Films like The Decameron, and why
The Canterbury Tales
episodic medieval storytelling, earthy eroticism, anticlerical humor, and exuberant folk realism
The Flowers of St. Francis
Pasolini-directed literary adaptation combining sexuality, popular culture, religious irreverence, and episodic storytelling
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
stylized medieval comedy-drama with bawdy sexuality, social satire, and irreverent treatment of religious institutions
The Name of the Rose
Italian literary adaptation marked by erotic frankness, theatricality, and critique of social and religious hypocrisy
Movie Details
- Director
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Release Date
- 1971-08-25
- Runtime
- 111 min
- Rating
- 6.9 / 10 (366)
Cast
- Franco Citti
- Ninetto Davoli
- Jovan Jovanović
- Angela Luce
- Vincenzo Amato
- Giuseppe Zigaina
- Maria Gabriella Maione
- Vincenzo Cristo
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Giorgio Iovine
Where to watch in United States
- Rent
- Amazon Video
- Buy
- Amazon Video
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is The Decameron about?
- Pasolini turns nine bawdy medieval tales into a sensual, irreverent anthology about desire, deception, faith, and the comic disorder of human life.
- What is The Decameron like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of The Decameron as brisk, its intensity as moderate and its storytelling as layered.
- Is The Decameron violent?
- Somewhat. Ember rates the violence in The Decameron as moderate.
- What did critics think of The Decameron?
- Critics and audiences broadly regard Pasolini's adaptation as an entertaining, visually exuberant, and provocatively irreverent rendering of Boccaccio's medieval tales.
- Which films are like The Decameron?
- Films with a similar feel include The Canterbury Tales, The Flowers of St. Francis, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and The Name of the Rose.
- How long is The Decameron?
- The Decameron runs 111 minutes.
- Where can I watch The Decameron?
- In United States, The Decameron is available to rent or buy from Amazon Video.
