The Best Italian Movies

From neorealism to post-modernism, the evolution of Italian cinema has created some of the most unique and entertaining movies.

DE EN ES FR IT PT RU

DE EN ES FR IT PT RU

30 Suspiria, 1977

An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.

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29 Youth (Youth — La giovinezza), 2015

Fred and Mick, two old friends, are on vacation in an elegant hotel at the foot of the Alps. Fred, a composer and conductor, is now retired. Mick, a movie director, is still working. They look with curiosity and tenderness on their children’s confused lives, Mick’s enthusiastic young writers, and the other hotel guests. While Mick scrambles to finish the screenplay for what he imagines will be his last important movie, Fred has no intention of resuming his musical career. But someone wants at all costs to hear him conduct again.

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28 The Hand Of God (È stata la mano di Dio), 2021

From Academy Award-winning writer and director Paolo Sorrentino, comes the story of a boy, Fabietto Schisa, in the tumultuous Naples of the 1980s. The Hand of God is a story full of unexpected joys, such as the arrival of football legend Diego Maradona, and an equally unexpected tragedy. Fate plays its part, joy and tragedy intertwine, and Fabietto’s future is set in motion. Sorrentino returns to his hometown to tell his most personal story, a tale of fate and family, sports and cinema, love and loss.

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27 Blow-Up, 1966

A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. Then he meets a mysterious beauty, and also notices something frightfully suspicious on one of his photographs of her taken in a park. The fact that he may have photographed a murder does not occur to him until he studies and then blows up his negatives, uncovering details, blowing up smaller and smaller elements, and finally putting the puzzle together.

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26 The Con Artists (Bluff storia di truffe e di imbroglioni), 1976

Belle Duke, in order to get revenge on her former lover Philip Bang, organizes his jail break. But instead of Philip is the Italian Felice Brianza, AKAS Felix, to escape. Now Felix is obliged to help Philip escape. He succeeds and from that moment on the two will join to defraud Belle. The swindle plot becomes more complicated when Felix falls in love with Philip’s daughter.

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25 The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza), 2013

Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

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24 Perfect Strangers (Perfetti sconosciuti), 2015

During a dinner party, seven long-time friends decide to share the contents of every text, email and phone call they receive. As secrets are brought to the surface, friendships are tested, in this film that has spawned eighteen remakes in four years — holding the Guinness world record for being remade more than any other feature film.

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23 I Remember (Amarcord), 1973

In an Italian seaside town, young Titta gets into trouble with his friends and watches various local eccentrics as they engage in often absurd behavior. Frequently clashing with his stern father and defended by his doting mother, Titta witnesses the actions of a wide range of characters, from his extended family to Fascist loyalists to sensual women, with certain moments shifting into fantastical scenarios.

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22 The Conformist (Il conformista), 1970

This story opens in 1938 in Rome, where Marcello has just taken a job working for Mussollini and is courting a beautiful young woman who will make him even more of a conformist. Marcello is going to Paris on his honeymoon and his bosses have an assignment for him there. Look up an old professor who fled Italy when the fascists came into power. At the border of Italy and France, where Marcello and his bride have to change trains, his bosses give him a gun with a silencer. In a flashback to 1917, we learn why sex and violence are linked in Marcello’s mind.

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21 1900 (Novecento), 1976

Set in Italy, the film follows the lives and interactions of two boys/men, one born a bastard of peasant stock, Olmo, the other born to a land owner, Alfredo. The drama spans from 1900 to about 1945, and focuses mainly on the rise of Fascism and the peasants’ eventual reaction by supporting Communism, and how these events shape the destinies of the two main characters.

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20 The Taming of the Scoundrel (Il bisbetico domato), 1980

A grouchy farmer, known around his small Italian town as being wonderful to his employees, but actively driving everyone else away, is in for a surprise when a beautiful girl from the city, ends up on his stoop after her car breaks down in the rain.

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19 Malena (Malèna), 2000

The film is set in 1940 during World War II just as Italy enters the war. Malena’s husband, Nino Scordia, leaves to serve in the military. Malena feels sad and tries to cope with her loss, as the town she has just moved to tries to deal with this beautiful woman who gets the attention and lustful stares of all the local men, including the 12-year-old Renato. However, in spite of the villagers’ gossip, she continues to be faithful to her husband.

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18 The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventù), 2003

Nicola and Matteo Carati are two brothers of Rome, who live the years from 1966 to 2000 and all the events which have signed this period. They begin their adventure by helping Giorgia, a young girl confined in an asylum. Then, after the flood of Florence, Nicola meets Giulia, a talented piano player with a dangerous sympathy for the BR. Matteo, a rebel spirit entered in the police, will find the optimistic photographer Mirella. These four characters and many others will cross the years of terrorism and Tangentopoli.

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17 Umberto D., 1952

Umberto Domenico Ferrari, an elderly and retired civil servant, is desperately trying to maintain a decent standard of living on a rapidly dwindling state pension, but he’s up against his tyrannical landlady, who keeps demanding rent that he can’t pay. His only friends are the pregnant housemaid and his little dog Flike.

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16 8½, 1963

Director Guido Anselmi’s working on his latest film;. Despite his declaring this movie should be an easy one to make, he’s having increasing difficulty with it. Specifically, he’s losing faith in what he originally intended, and is getting more confused, now lost in just what the film should be. Due to the stresses — both professional and personal — he’s checked into a spa to help him work through his problems, he reflects on his childhood and fantasises.

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15 La dolce vita, 1960

Seven days in the life of a Marcello, a Roman journalist torn between making something serious of his life or drifting along on a pleasant if empty stream of casual affairs and profitable but meaningless newspaper and magazine work. In the course of the week, he flirts with a visiting movie star, has a couple of encounters with a bored socialite, is shocked when Steiner, a «serious» writer and deep thinker, kills himself and his children, and generally ignores his adoring girlfriend. In the end, he seems to have cut himself adrift on a sea of frivolity and self-disgust, with no real idea of how to find his way back «home.»

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14 Nights of Cabiria (Le notti di Cabiria), 1957

Practicing the world’s oldest profession in the archaeological walk of Rome’s Parco di Porta Capena, the trusting, stubbornly-optimistic streetwalker Cabiria refuses to lose faith in love. After escaping death by the skin of her teeth, the hurt and momentarily-disenchanted Cabiria continues to confront life with a mixture of naivete and arrogance. One evening she ventures into the elegant Via Veneto and gets picked up by suave film star Alberto Lazzari. Disappointment awaits once more, and as poor Cabiria prays to Virgin Mary for guidance and a blessing, the man of her prayers, Oscar D’Onofrio, barges into her life after a chance encounter at a vaudeville theatre. But do miracles happen?

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13 The Best Offer (La migliore offerta), 2012

The inscrutable lifelong bachelor and eccentric genius Virgil Oldman is a highly respected art connoisseur and auctioneer with a passion for selling antiques. However, his monotonous life is about to change when agoraphobic young heiress Claire Ibbetson enlists his help to appraise and sell some works of art inherited from her late father. Isolated from the world, Claire instantly piques Virgil’s curiosity: unable to resist the allure of the mysterious woman, he sees his confined world transform beyond recognition. But is Virgil prepared for the hardships of love?

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12 A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari), 1964

Flat broke, a taciturn, amoral sharp-shooter rides into the dusty, sun-bleached border town of San Miguel, where everyone is either rich or dead. Torn apart by two feuding families the corrupt Baxters and the murderous Rojos who fight for control, the sleepy town provides the perfect opportunity for profit. Before long, the nameless stranger embarks on a dangerous mission to play each gang off against the other in a deadly battle of wits. Of course, all eyes are set on the grand prize. How far is a man willing to go for a fistful of dollars?

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11 Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era una volta il West), 1968

Story of a young woman, Mrs. McBain, who moves from New Orleans to frontier Utah, on the very edge of the American West. She arrives to find her new husband and family slaughtered, but by whom? The prime suspect, coffee-lover Cheyenne, befriends her and offers to go after the real killer, assassin gang leader Frank, in her honor. He is accompanied by Harmonica, a man already on a quest to get even.

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10 La strada, 1954

Gelsomina lives a quiet life with her mother and three sisters. However, this sheltered existence is shattered when a travelling showman, Zampano, pays her mother so that Gelsomina will travel with and work for him. She is initially a reluctant participant in his line of work but soon tries to make the most of it, even learning some new skills. However, she has to contend with his brutish, unfeeling behaviour.

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9 Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette), 1948

Antonio Ricci, an unemployed man in the depressed post-WWII economy of Italy, finally gets a job hanging up posters, but he needs a bicycle. But when his bicycle is stolen,, he and son walk the streets of Rome looking for it. Antonio finally manages to locate the thief, but with no proof he must abandon his cause. But he and his son know perfectly well that without a bike, Antonio won’t be able to keep his job.

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8 The Legend of 1900 (La leggenda del pianista sull’oceano), 1998

Danny Boodmann, a stoker on an American passenger liner, Virginian, finds a baby abandoned on the ship. He names the child Danny Boodmann T.D. Lemon Nineteen Hundred ‘1900’ and raises the child as his own until his death in an accident on the ship. The child never leaves the ship and turns out to be a musical genius, especially when it comes to playing the piano. As an adult he befriends a trumpet player in the ship’s band, Max Tooney. After several years on the ship Max leaves, and tells the story of 1900 to the owner of a music store.

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7 La notte, 1961

In Milan, after visiting dear friend Tommaso Garani who is terminally ill in a hospital, write Giovanni Pontano goes to a party for the release of his latest book, and his wife Lidia visits the place where she lived many years ago. That night they go to a nightclub, then to a party at tycoon Gherardini’s mansion. Through the night Giovanni flirts with his host’s daughter Valentina Gherardini while Lidia flirts with playboy Roberto and receives a proposal to work for him in the area of communication and write the history of his company.

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6 Rocco and His Brothers (Rocco e i suoi fratelli), 1960

Having recently been uprooted to Milan, Rocco and his four brothers each look for a new way in life when a prostitute comes between Rocco and his brother Simone.

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5 Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso), 1988

A filmmaker recalls his childhood when falling in love with the pictures at the cinema of his home village and forms a deep friendship with the cinema’s projectionist.

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4 For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più), 1965

Manco is a bounty killer chasing El Indio and his gang. During his hunt he meets Colonel Douglas Mortimer, another bounty killer, and they decide to make a partnership, chase the bad guys together, and split the reward. During their enterprise, there will be lots of bullets and funny situations. In the end, one of the bounty hunters shows the real intention of his hunt.

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3 Once Upon a Time in America, 1983

Epic, episodic tale of the lives of a small group of New York City Jewish gangsters spanning over 40 years. Told mostly in flashbacks and flash-forwards, the movie centers on small-time hood David ‘Noodles’ Aaronson and his lifelong partners in crime: Max, Cockeye, and Patsy, and their friends from growing up in the rough Jewish neighborhood of New York’s Lower East Side in the 1920s to the last years of Prohibition in the early 1930s, through to the late 1960s, where an elderly Noodles returns to New York after many years in hiding to look into the past.

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2 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo), 1966

Three different men of three different temperaments and tastes get involved in a long and adventure-filled battle in order to find a fortune in gold. While the first man, an ex-bounty hunter and a forgiving person, knows the name of the grave inwhich the gold is buried, the second, a fast-tempered greedy man, knows the name on the cemetery. But the third person, a cruel, cold-blooded murderer, knows about the gold first, but must find the location from the first two.

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1 Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella), 1997

A gentle Jewish-Italian waiter, Guido Orefice, meets Dora, a pretty schoolteacher, and wins her over with his charm and humor. Eventually they marry and have a son, Giosue. Their happiness is abruptly halted, however, when Guido and Giosue are separated from Dora and taken to a concentration camp. Determined to shelter his son from the horrors of his surroundings, Guido convinces Giosue that their time in the camp is merely a game.

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