In the near future, big wars are avoided by giving individuals with violent tendencies a chance to kill in the Big Hunt.
The 10th Victim is a 1965 Italian international co-production science fiction film directed by Elio Petri and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress, and featuring Elsa Martinelli in a supporting role. The picture is based on Robert Sheckley’s 1953 short story “Seventh Victim”. It depicts a government-endorsed, televised Big Hunt, featuring contestants from around the world acting as “hunters” and “victims”; when Marcello Poletti and Caroline Meredith, the game’s two top assassins, are pitted against each other, they find that love is the most dangerous game of all. Sheckley later published a novelization of the film in 1966, and two sequels (Victim Prime and Hunter/Victim) in 1987 and 1988, respectively. In the United States, the film was theatrically released by Joseph E. Levine’s Embassy Pictures.