The Spider’s Stratagem

The Spider’s Stratagem

Year: 1970

Runtime: 100 mins

Language: Italian

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

DramaMystery

Returning to his rural hometown, a young man sets out to uncover the murky details of his father's death—officially blamed on Fascists in 1936, before the son was born. As he pieces together a tangled network of deception that permeates the entire community, he becomes caught in the very web he is trying to expose.

Warning: spoilers below!

Haven’t seen The Spider’s Stratagem yet? This summary contains major spoilers. Bookmark the page, watch the movie, and come back for the full breakdown. If you're ready, scroll on and relive the story!

Timeline & Setting – The Spider’s Stratagem (1970)

Explore the full timeline and setting of The Spider’s Stratagem (1970). Follow every major event in chronological order and see how the environment shapes the story, characters, and dramatic tension.

Time period

1930s

The story unfolds in 1930s Italy under fascist rule, a period marked by censorship and political fear. A fortune teller’s prediction and an unopened letter foreshadow a confrontation with the past. The town’s memory is curated to preserve a heroic narrative and suppress inconvenient truths.

Location

Tara

Tara is an insular town built around a central square dominated by a statue memorializing a resistance hero. The atmosphere is tense, with rumors about the father’s fate and a mythic history of fascist violence. The theatre and the statue become focal points where truth and legend collide.

🏙️ Claustrophobic town 🗿 Statue-centered square

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 14:35

Main Characters – The Spider’s Stratagem (1970)

Meet the key characters of The Spider’s Stratagem (1970), with detailed profiles, motivations, and roles in the plot. Understand their emotional journeys and what they reveal about the film’s deeper themes.

Draifa (Alida Valli)

Draifa is the enigmatic patroness who invites Athos to Tara and reveals a network of personal and political motives. She embodies manipulation and secrecy, guiding Athos toward or away from the truth. Her role centers on confronting a town that favors myth over memory.

🕵️ Mystery 🌫️ Intrigue

Athos Magnani Jr. / Athos Magnani Sr. (Giulio Brogi)

Athos arrives to uncover his father’s fate and the heroic myth surrounding him. He is cautious, introspective, and bound by kinship to his father. His journey tests whether personal truth can survive a community built on myth.

🧭 Search for truth 🕰️ Heritage

Costa (Tino Scotti)

Costa is a wary local who knows more than he reveals about the father and the attempted bombing. He embodies the town’s habit of evading complete truths. His cautious stance adds to the atmosphere of suspicion that surrounds Athos.

🎭 Secrecy 🗝️ Complicity

Gaibazzi (Pippo Campanini)

Gaibazzi is a conspirator who retains inside knowledge of the father’s plans. He represents loyalty tangled with fear and the cost of truth. His memory links the past plot to the present investigation.

🗝️ Secrets 🕯️ Conspiracy

Razori (Franco Giovanelli)

Razori is another contact of the father who offers fragments of the truth. He personifies the difficulty of reconstructing history from rumor and fear. His unreliable testimony underscores the film’s theme of myth-making.

🗯️ Rumor 🕷️ Betrayal

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 14:35

Major Themes – The Spider’s Stratagem (1970)

Explore the central themes of The Spider’s Stratagem (1970), from psychological, social, and emotional dimensions to philosophical messages. Understand what the film is really saying beneath the surface.

🕵️ Truth vs Myth

Athos’s return drives a search for factual history that clashes with the town’s comforting narrative. The father’s supposed bombing plan becomes both history and myth, shaping what the town accepts as truth. The film explores how memory can be manufactured by those in power and how individuals challenge that fabrication. It asks what remains of truth when myth is convenient.

🗝️ Legacy

Draifa’s presence and Athos’s arrival force a reckoning with a family legacy that has been mythologized by the community. The father is remembered as a hero, yet the details are contested, revealing the power of narrative. The theme examines whether legacy is a burden or a tool that binds the living to a past they did not choose.

⚖️ Betrayal

Conspirators and police contribute to a web of betrayal surrounding the father’s death. Fear and self-preservation blur moral lines, turning inquiry into a game of half-truths. The film critiques how societies preserve order by sacrificing truth to maintain a convenient story.

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 14:35

Mobile App Preview

Coming soon on iOS and Android

The Plot Explained Mobile App

From blockbusters to hidden gems — dive into movie stories anytime, anywhere. Save your favorites, discover plots faster, and never miss a twist again.

Sign up to be the first to know when we launch. Your email stays private — always.

Explore Movie Threads

Discover curated groups of movies connected by mood, themes, and story style. Browse collections built around emotion, atmosphere, and narrative focus to easily find films that match what you feel like watching right now.

Movies like The Spider’s Stratagem about unraveling political lies

Where investigating a past political mystery reveals a corrosive web of deception.If you liked the slow, melancholic investigation in The Spider’s Stratagem, you'll appreciate these films. They feature characters uncovering buried political secrets and community deceptions, often set in atmospheric, claustrophobic towns, where the past is a carefully maintained lie.

atmosphericmelancholicmysteriousreflectiveoppressivehauntingpolitical

Narrative Summary

The narrative typically centers on an outsider or returning figure investigating a long-buried event. As they question the official story, they encounter resistance and obfuscation from a tight-knit community, gradually realizing that the truth is not just hidden but has been replaced by a more convenient, but corrosive, lie that everyone upholds.

Why These Movies?

These films are grouped by their shared focus on a deliberate, atmospheric investigation into a constructed past. They share a melancholic tone, a slow, reflective pace, and a profound sense of ambiguity, where the quest for truth leads not to clarity but to a deeper entrapment within the myth itself.

Movies with a claustrophobic small-town atmosphere like The Spider’s Stratagem

Stories where the setting itself becomes a psychological trap of secrets.For viewers who appreciated the oppressive, small-town vibe of The Spider’s Stratagem. These films capture a similar feeling of a community bound by silence and secrets, where the atmosphere is thick with unspoken truths and the journey leads to a heavy, ambiguous sense of entrapment.

claustrophobicoppressiveatmospherichauntingmysteriousmelancholicpsychological

Narrative Summary

The narrative journey is one of entering a seemingly quiet, defined world that gradually reveals itself to be a gilded cage. The protagonist's quest for answers is met with the immovable weight of the environment and its inhabitants, culminating not in escape but in a realization of their own inescapable connection to the place's corrupted fabric.

Why These Movies?

They are united by a masterful use of atmosphere to create a palpable sense of place that is both haunting and confining. The shared experience is one of slow-burn psychological unease, where the mood is melancholic, the pacing is deliberate, and the emotional weight stems from the protagonist's futile struggle against an enveloping, deceptive environment.

Unlock the Full Story of The Spider’s Stratagem

Don't stop at just watching — explore The Spider’s Stratagem in full detail. From the complete plot summary and scene-by-scene timeline to character breakdowns, thematic analysis, and a deep dive into the ending — every page helps you truly understand what The Spider’s Stratagem is all about. Plus, discover what's next after the movie.

The Spider’s Stratagem Summary

Read a complete plot summary of The Spider’s Stratagem, including all key story points, character arcs, and turning points. This in-depth recap is ideal for understanding the narrative structure or reviewing what happened in the movie.

The Spider’s Stratagem Summary

The Spider’s Stratagem Timeline

Track the full timeline of The Spider’s Stratagem with every major event arranged chronologically. Perfect for decoding non-linear storytelling, flashbacks, or parallel narratives with a clear scene-by-scene breakdown.

The Spider’s Stratagem Timeline

The Spider’s Stratagem Spoiler-Free Summary

Get a quick, spoiler-free overview of The Spider’s Stratagem that covers the main plot points and key details without revealing any major twists or spoilers. Perfect for those who want to know what to expect before diving in.

The Spider’s Stratagem Spoiler-Free Summary

More About The Spider’s Stratagem

Visit What's After the Movie to explore more about The Spider’s Stratagem: box office results, cast and crew info, production details, post-credit scenes, and external links — all in one place for movie fans and researchers.

More About The Spider’s Stratagem

Similar Movies to The Spider’s Stratagem

Discover movies like The Spider’s Stratagem that share similar genres, themes, and storytelling elements. Whether you’re drawn to the atmosphere, character arcs, or plot structure, these curated recommendations will help you explore more films you’ll love.