[Accattone] is a film about the rejects of society, in the active and passive senses of the phrase; about those whom society has rejected and those who have rejected society, or have never belonged or never wanted to belong. In this category is included, at least for the purposes of the film, almost the entire population of Pigneto, the Roman suburb which Pasolini used as a location for the shooting of Accattone: casual labourers, the unemployed, complete down-and-outs—the morti da fame—thieves, petty crooks, ponces and tarts. It is a tough world, with its own special rules for survival….

[There] are films about the underworld, dozens of them, but there is no great mythology comparable to that of the gangster film of the American Thirties; nor has there been any attempt to look at this world realistically, in the way neo-realism looked at the organized working class...