Miracle In Milan (Vittorio De Sica, 1951)

It's a film from postwar Italy. It's so warm and charming and hilarious and has this very sweet thing going on. It's about some people who live in a camp for bums by the rail road in a very hopeless, grainy, black and white Milan of very poor people and the swells who are trying to obliterate the camp. It's a kind of weird Christmas fable - it starts out with an old lady who finds a little baby in a cabbage patch. It's irresistible, silly and beautiful and there's some great music. The film has a great story and some spectacular effects. When you see it you realise where many of the ideas came from for a lot of Spielberg. The last scene is them riding their broom sticks - i.e. bicycles - up to heaven. That's probably my favourite film of all time.