Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

1975 ‘Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma’ Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

The final vision of a controversial filmmaker.

Four corrupted fascist libertines round up 9 teenage boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual torture.

Paolo Bonacelli Giorgio Cataldi Umberto P. Quintavalle Aldo Valletti Caterina Boratto Elsa De Giorgi Hélène Surgère Sonia Saviange Sergio Fascetti Bruno Musso Antonio Orlando Claudio Cicchetti Franco Merli Umberto Chessari Lamberto Book Gaspare Di Jenno Giuliana Melis Faridah Malik Graziella Aniceto Renata Moar Dorit Henke Antiniska Nemour Benedetta Gaetani Olga Andreis Tatiana Mogilansky Susanna Radaelli Giuliana Orlandi Liana Acquaviva Rinaldo Missaglia Show All…

Alternative Titles

Saló o los 120 días de Sodoma, 120 meres sta Sodoma, Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, Salò, ソドムの市, Сало или 120те дни на Содом, Saló, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò, Salò, ou os 120 Dias de Sodoma, Salo, avagy Szodoma 120 napja, Salo ili 120 dana Sodome, Salò eller Sodoms 120 dagar, Salo, 120 meres sta Sodoma, 120 μέρες στα Σόδομα, Salo: Les 120 Jours de Sodome, Salò - Sodoman 120 päivää, Salo - De 120 dagen van Sodoma, Salò, o las 120 jornadas de Sodoma, Salò o los 120 días de Sodoma, Salo eller Sodomas 120 dager, Salo sau cele 120 de zile ale Sodomei, Salò, czyli 120 dni Sodomy, Maheedhar

drama war horror

117 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 4

you know what they say about fascism
it ain't great
Review by jake kwiatkowski ★★★★½ 4

"Salò, and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days of Sodom"
Review by bri 23

what level of Film Major™ do you have to reach to think this is good
Review by lauren ★★★ 10

my parents finally caved and got disney+ so obviously this was the first thing i watched
Review by Karsten Runquist ★★★½ 30

Salò has lurked in the back of my mind for awhile now. Going in with the expectation of it being one of the most disturbing films of all time had me intimidated but extremely curious. What I didn’t expect was the bleak, depressing, disconnections within the film. While obviously disturbing (so much poop) I can’t say I’ve seen a film this heartless before. A film that conveys that feeling not through nauseating cinematography or haunting music but through something indescribable. I’ll be thinking about this one for awhile but not for the reasons I expected.
Review by May McNeal 7

Salo or 120 Days of Sodom is fucking hard. Like, it's a hard movie to discuss. The majority of the community of people that see it either like it because it's fucked up or hate it because it's fucked up. On the other hand, I hear the argument more times than I'd care to that this film is 'gratuitous' 'boring' and 'void of intellectual backbone.' So basically there's a large group of people dismissing the movie and saying it's stupid.
As with a lot movies that I feel really strongly towards, I guess I kinda get it. I mean, as I said in the opening of this entry, Salo is fucking hard. It's more than just a challenging movie, it's…
Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 4

Rats laugh when they are tickled.
Just a happy little fact to cheer me up after that (literal) shit-fest.
Rats laugh when they are tickled.
Rats laugh when they are tickled.
Rats laugh when they are tickled.
I'm just going to keep repeating that to myself...
If there's one thing that I have to say, it's that, to me, the scariest thing about Salo is the sardonic tone with which it handles its subject matter.
The only other thing that I'll mention, because I'm cinematically exhausted, is it's interesting to me that this film, which is quite possibly the ugliest film ever made, was released in 1975, the same year as Andrei Tarkovsky's Zerkalo/The Mirror, which is quite possibly the most beautiful film ever made. Both films are masterpieces in their own right (or in this case, wrong).
Okay.
Goodnight.
I'm going to go and try to dream about some puppies.
Review by COBRARocky ★★★★★

Everyone has to kind of reassure themselves that its "about fascism" and therefore respectable but I think it's just a gay director having a little too much fun.
Review by Wes ★★★★ 9

i went to my least favorite place this morning, the dentist, and i had my teeth cleaned and scraped at for an hour until they bled and after watching this i can honestly say im praying for a dentists sweet embrace right now
Review by alex todd 🧟‍♂️ ★ 14

no.
Review by Joe Jatcko ½ 22

First of all, this is all of your faults. I never would have watched this if it hadn't been brought up again and again as such an essential film for any true cinephile. Serves me right for wanting to be part of a club that would have me as a member.
But seriously, this is more of a rite of passage now than a film. The tragic history surrounding it echoes its content, so it would be unwise to dismiss its evils as disproportionate. And yet, art has the ability to be something better. By only showing evil, you are only fighting half the battle. It takes a greater courage to face it, and maintain your humanity.
Still, somehow, what…
Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★ 25

***One of the best 150 films I have ever seen.***
In the process of finding the correct first sentence to begin with a proper review of Pier Paolo Pasolini's last film Salò o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma, I failed miserably. In fact, I have already written it... it's somewhat hilarious. Words cannot and will not suffice for properly describing the artful subjectivity and political power of this extraordinary piece of art. Open-minded masses, supporter of all artistic expressions and, specifically, Pasolini fans cannot avoid the great personal amazement, pride and joy towards a director that never hesitated to express his anarchic, totalitarian and Marxist ideas through his religious and political manifestos, his daring and controversial magnum opuses, his visionary…

Recent reviews

Review by Niño ★★★½

68/100
Review by AJ ★★★★

Initially, I wanted to save this for later in my Pasolini viewing, but, I'm not sure why, spur of the moment I guess, I decided earlier today that I was going to watch this and spent my day reinforcing that. There's not much of anything I can say that hasn't been said. Of all the films that need context this is one of the most important, and I think it's daft to dismiss this as edgelord shit. Pasolini's craft is top-notch. The sterility of Pasolini's direction is what drove his points home for me. He really makes sure you get the point.
Review by faesy

i was never able to finish this movie, so watch with caution.
Review by Jacob Aird ★★½ 1

I just want to start by saying I went in not reading any reviews or reading the plot synopsis because I wanted to not have any bias going in at all. All I knew is that it was controversial and the poster looked fucked up and that’s kinda it. I was surprised how actually disturbing this was. Now the themes the film tackles are pretty interesting and the film depicts those themes as best it can. Now the main issue I have is that a lot of the film is kinda boring to me. Honestly, so much of the runtime is filled with one fucked up thing to the next fucked up thing. And I don’t know if that is…
Review by Matt ★★★★½

I think Saló, and it’s core is a genius accounting of the depravity of fascism and the shear terror that accompanies it. Saló articulates that depravity with its own perverse depravity. It is beyond the capacity of the human mind to contemplate the horrors of the war crimes committed by the Nazis, and no film can instill that fear into the hearts and minds of an audience, but Saló comes about as close as art will allow.
Review by sithsbucky ★

This is one of the most disturbing and disgusting movies I’ve ever seen, I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, though I know people will watch out of morbid curiosity like I did. TW: for the entire movie
Review by ally ^~^ ½

aooooorhghgOOOOOO (that’s me screaming) 😜👏
Review by ebx_x

what the fuck was that
Review by hyggemanden

Watched today with my classmates on zoom. Felt different things which i’m not gonna go in depth with here.
Well.. yeah. Now I’ve seen it i guess.
(Not gonna do emoji summary of this one)
Review by Jesus GE ★★★½

Pues al fin sucedió. Ah sido un poco desagradable, pero sin duda el guión en buenísimo. En si fue mejor de lo que esperaba.
Review by Kejsi D ★★★★½

KRYEVEPER!!!!!!!
Review by Smidvin ★★★★ 4

I asked my friend Fabian, "Salò: over-, under-, or rated?"

F: Depends. As "Oh my God, can you believe it?" Old Italian Extremity bad-taste horrorcore - overrated.
Agree - as a piece of shock cinema, overrated. It's the mother of softfascist Tumblr aesthetics. I don't want to know how many edgelords posted screencaps of the shit-dinner scene and tagged them as #weddinginspo.

F: As bleak, brutal analysis of fascism - underrated.
Agree - as political cinema, still underrated. Though in my opinion, also as a religious piece... I often read words like "cold", "clinical", "detached" to describe this film, and I don't fully agree with that. It's the same terms people use for Cronenberg, but he and Pasolini are half-mystics…