They Call Me Jeeg

Enzo, a small-time thief in the Roman suburbs, jumps into the Tiber while running from police and comes out coated in radioactive waste. He wakes up extraordinarily strong, and the first thing he does with it is rob a cash machine rather than save anyone. The title points two ways at once, to Gō Nagai's Steel Jeeg anime and to the spaghetti western They Call Me Trinity. Alessia, who watches the anime obsessively, mistakes Enzo for the hero himself, and the film's entire emotional weight rests on that misunderstanding. It was made for 1.7 million euros and took 6 million in Italy. At the 61st David di Donatello awards it converted 17 nominations into 8 wins, including Best New Director for Gabriele Mainetti and acting prizes for Claudio Santamaria and Ilenia Pastorelli. Who it is for: anyone curious about what the superhero genre becomes outside a studio system. Who it is not for: viewers expecting something clean and family-friendly. The violence and the mob material here are genuinely harsh.