His neorealist films like 'Bicycle Thieves' and 'Umberto D.' capture the struggles of working-class Rome while exploring the tensions between rural migration and urban desperation.

Films like 'Days of Heaven' and 'The New World' meditate on the collision between pastoral innocence and industrial/urban corruption through poetic visual language.

His works such as 'Stalker' and 'Mirror' explore the spiritual emptiness of modern urban and industrial existence against memories of provincial Russia's natural beauty.