30 Must-Watch Italian Movies For Italian Language Learners
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Watching videos and movies in Italian can be an incredibly effective way to immerse yourself in the language. By watching movies, you can improve your conversational grammar, assess your comprehension level, and learn new words, phrases and a little about Italy’s culture and history.
Several films contain violence, sexual content, grief or other mature themes. Check the exact edition’s content notes and language tracks. Historical settings and regional speech can need background explanation, and film plots are not documentary evidence about all Italians.
This selection spans comedy, drama and horror. Choose by subject, pace and your interest in the story; different films suit different learners.
1. La Vita è Bella (Life is beautiful)
Directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, Holocaust comedy-drama film La vita è bella is recognized internationally for being one of Italy’s most famous movies.
Part drama, part comedy, part war story and part love story, La vita è bella is directed by Tuscan actor and screenwriter Roberto Benigni, Italy’s national treasure, who also contributed to the story of the film. This masterpiece won a spate of awards, including Best Actor for Benigni at the Academy Awards.
The story begins in 1930s Tuscany. Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni), a Jewish man, arrives in Arezzo and works as a waiter before opening a bookshop. He falls in love with the schoolteacher Dora (Nicoletta Braschi); they marry and have a son, Giosuè. Their family life is later disrupted by persecution and deportation during the war.
Guido and Giosuè are arrested and shipped to a concentration camp, while Dora, who is not a Jew, volunteers to go to the camp, to be close to them. Guido plays an elaborate game to protect Giosuè from the horrors of the Holocaust.
This really is a masterpiece that makes me proud to be Italian. Watch it, and get ready to laugh a lot and cry your eyes out at the same time, while improving your Italian.
Listening focus: Describe a character using present-tense adjectives.
2. Il Postino (The Postman)
Directed by Michael Radford, Il postino (1994) tells a fictional story set on a southern Italian island in the 1950s. Its filming locations included Procida and Salina; a filming location is not necessarily the precise named setting of the story.
The film imagines the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (Philippe Noiret) living in exile on the island. His large volume of correspondence leads to a job for Mario Ruoppolo (Massimo Troisi), who delivers the poet’s mail.
A friendship develops between Mario and Neruda. Mario discovers metaphor and poetry, and begins to use words in his own attempts to express love.
Il postino was released after Massimo Troisi’s death in 1994. His performance as Mario is central to the film’s gentle humour and emotional impact.
Listening focus: Listen for metaphors and explain one in ordinary prose.
3. I Cento Passi (The hundred steps)
Directed by Marco Tullio Giordana and released in 2000, I Cento Passi is a drama set in Cinisi, a small town in north-western Sicily.
It dramatizes the life of Peppino Impastato, an anti-Mafia activist from Cinisi who was murdered in 1978 on the orders of Gaetano Badalamenti. The title refers to the short distance between their family homes, making the conflict particularly close to home.
This biographical film explains the important role played by young activist Peppino Impastato in facing the Sicilian Mafia.
Listening focus: Notice vocabulary for radio, activism and local relationships.
4. La Dolce Vita (The sweet life)
Directed and co-written by Federico Fellini, La Dolce Vita is a cult classic of Italian cinema. It tells the story of gossip columnist Marcello Rubini, played by Marcello Mastroianni, who spends his days rubbing elbows with the rich and famous in Rome.
When he crosses paths with Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), a American actress, Marcello feels himself floating away from his devoted fiancée Emma. Devastated by the suicide of his distinguished intellectual friend Steiner, he must decide whether to look for a more meaningful life or go on with his frivolous lifestyle.
This movie is best known internationally for the scene in which Anita Ekberg lures Marcello Mastroianni into the waters of the Trevi fountain at dawn wearing a beautiful black evening dress. Surely one of cinema’s most sensual scenes, that sequence is immortalized in countless souvenirs in Rome today.
Listening focus: Compare formal introductions with informal conversations.
5. La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty)
Directed and co-written by Paolo Sorrentino, La Grande Bellezza is a fascinating Italian art drama that can be described as an homage to that feeling of Roman-ness that somewhat evokes Fellini’s movie La Dolce Vita.
It centers around 65-year-old writer Jep Gambardella, a man-about-town at the center of Rome’s fashionable nightlife and high-class affairs. The protagonist is played by uniquely potent stage and screen actor Toni Servillo.
Listening focus: Listen for how speakers express opinions about art and society.
6. La Strada (The Road)
You’ll be blown away by the heartbreaking operatic pathos of this early masterpiece by Fellini, regarded as one of the most influential films ever made.
Giulietta Masina plays Gelsomina, a vulnerable young woman whose mother accepts money for her to join the travelling performer Zampanò (Anthony Quinn). The film explores exploitation, cruelty and their consequences; a modern clinical diagnosis should not be inferred from this fictional portrayal.
Listening focus: Notice commands and how tone changes their meaning.
7. Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle thieves)
Directed by Vittorio De Sica, Ladri di biciclette is an often-cited example of Italian neo-realism, based on the use of non-professional actors and real locations. It came out in 1948.
Ladri di biciclette is a devastating and touching movie that follows the story of Antonio Ricci, a poor man desperately struggling to provide for his family and himself.
Listening focus: Follow vocabulary for work, money and family needs.
8. Roma città aperta (Rome, Open City)
Directed by Roberto Rossellini, Roma città aperta is an iconic movie set during the Nazi occupation of Rome. It is about a soon-to-be-wed couple who find themselves caught in the middle of the conflict between Italian resistance fighters and Nazi occupying forces.
Listening focus: Distinguish resistance-era vocabulary from ordinary modern conversation.
9. Malèna
Written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, Malèna (2000) stars Monica Bellucci. It is a drama about desire, gossip and persecution in wartime Sicily, rather than a light romantic comedy.
Maddalena Scordia, known as Malèna, lives in a Sicilian town while her husband is away at war. The adolescent Renato becomes fascinated by her, while rumours and hostility make her vulnerable. The film includes sexual content and violence.
Listening focus: Notice how gossip is reported rather than asserted by the narrator.
10. Io non ho paura (I’m not scared)
Directed by Academy Award-winning film director and screenwriter Gabriele Salvatores, Io non ho paura is a crime mystery thriller film, which came out in 2003. It is based on Niccolò Ammaniti’s novel with the same name.
Set in rural southern Italy in 1978, Io non ho paura follows a boy, Michele, who discovers another child held captive in a hole. As he learns more, the discovery threatens his trust in the adults around him. The kidnapping plot is frightening and includes violence.
Listening focus: Follow clues and identify which events happened before others.
11. Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips)
One of Italy’s most gifted directors, Silvio Soldini directs this nice comedy about Rosalba Barletta, a dissatisfied housewife who temporarily flees from the oppressive tedium of her household and parental duties.
During a family vacation on a bus tour, Rosalba is accidentally left behind at a rest stop. She decides to continue her vacation on her own, and ends up in Venice, where she finds true happiness.
Listening focus: Practise travel and accommodation expressions.
12. Giorni e nuvole (Days and clouds)
Giorni e nuvole is a drama film directed by Silvio Soldini. It tells the story of Elsa (Margherita Buy) and her husband Michele (Antonio Albanese), a happily married middle-class couple living in a posh apartment in the charming city of Genoa.
The film describes the emotional strain and financial struggles that occur when they suddenly find their life turned upside down after Michele loses his job. After making sacrifices, giving up their affluent lifestyle, finding new humbler jobs and moving into a much smaller apartment, the cracks in their now fragile marriage progressively start to widen.
Listening focus: Notice vocabulary for employment and changing circumstances.
13. Cosa voglio di più (Come undone)
Set in Milan, Cosa voglio di più is another great movie by Silvio Soldini. Anna, played by talented Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher, works at an insurance company and lives with her loving partner, Alessio (Giuseppe Battiston). They are happy and even start thinking of having a baby.
But when Anna meets Domenico (Pier Francesco Favino), everything changes. Even though he is married with kids, they start a clandestine, intense sexual affair based on secret meetings. As they begin to fall deeper under the spell of passion, the two lovers are faced with a life-changing choice that neither of them is actually ready to make.
Listening focus: Listen for negotiation, hesitation and implied meaning.
14. Il Ciclone (The Cyclone)
Co-written, directed by and starring Leonardo Pieraccioni, Il Ciclone is a romantic comedy that came out in 1996. This is a very funny one.
Levante Quarini works as an accountant and lives with his father Osvaldo, his sister Selvaggia and his brother Libero in a farmhouse surrounded by corn fields. One evening a street sign pointing to a nearby holiday farm falls, and a bus with a group of Spanish flamenco dancers due to town for a show gets lost. They have no chance but to stop at Levante’s farmhouse, and…
Listening focus: Notice Tuscan speech and use a standard-language reference for regional forms.
15. Manuale d’amore (Manual of love)
Directed by Giovanni Veronesi, Manuale d’amore is a romantic comedy set in Rome. It describes the four stages of a love story:
- getting to know one another and falling in love
- crisis
- cheating
- break-up
I also recommend the sequels to this nice movie: Manuale d’amore 2 and Manuale d’amore 3.
Listening focus: Compare expressions for the different stages of relationships.
16. Tre uomini e una gamba (Three men and a leg)
Aldo, Giovanni & Giacomo are, in my opinion, the best comedy trio in Italy. Co-written and co-directed by them and Massimo Venier, Tre uomini e una gamba is a road movie that came out in 1997.
It is about three friends and colleagues – Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo – who have to travel from Milan to Apulia for Giacomo’s wedding. The bride’s father, who is also Giovanni and Aldo’s father-in-law, is their employer. He has assigned them the task of bringing him his beloved pet dog and a wooden sculpture of a leg. They accidentally kill his dog, and…
Listening focus: Follow a journey and summarize a misunderstanding.
17. Chiedimi se sono felice (Ask me if I’m happy)
Set in Milan, Chiedimi se sono felice is a brilliant comedy film directed by Aldo, Giovanni & Giacomo. It tells the story of three actors who were once close friends and long dreamed of setting up a play adapted from Cyrano de Bergerac. However, when Giovanni fell in love with Marina, it led to a bitter disagreement between them.
However, several years later Giovanni and Giacomo decide that it’s time to bury the hatchet, and travel to Sicily to visit Aldo, who had fallen ill.
Listening focus: Notice ways characters recall events and repair a friendship.
18. Mine vaganti (Loose cannons)
Mine vaganti is a comedy-drama directed by Ferzan Özpetek and set around a family pasta business in Lecce. Tommaso (Riccardo Scamarcio) returns from Rome planning to come out to his family, but his brother Antonio speaks first. The film explores expectations, identity and family relationships.
Listening focus: Listen for family vocabulary and expectations expressed with modal verbs.
19. Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (Paradise Cinema)
A drama film written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, Nuovo Cinema Paradiso came out in 1988. It tells the story of Salvatore Di Vita, a prominent Roman film director, who returns to his home village in Sicily to attend the funeral of Alfredo, the former film projectionist at the local movie house. In so doing, Salvatore embarks upon a journey into his childhood.
Listening focus: Compare memories in the past with the framing story in the present.
20. L’ultimo bacio (The last kiss)
L’ultimo bacio is written and directed by Gabriele Muccino, one of the most appreciated Italian film directors abroad. You probably have already heard of him.
It tells the story of Giulia and Carlo, played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Stefano Accorsi. They have been happy together for a couple of years, when Giulia finds out she is pregnant. Frightened by his impending entry into the world of parenthood, Carlo finds himself tempted by an attractive teen girl.
Listening focus: Notice expressions of plans, uncertainty and responsibility.
21. Borotalco (Talcum Powder)
Borotalco is a funny comedy film directed by and starring Carlo Verdone. It centers around a timid and awkward young man, Sergio Benvenuti, who works as a salesman with little success.
Desperate to improve his sales rate, he asks his more successful colleague, Nadia, played by Eleonora Giorgi, to give him a hand. Due to a comic mishap, Sergio bumps into an extravagant character, who introduces himself as Manuel Fantoni, and…
Listening focus: Identify formal sales language and informal storytelling.
22. 7 chili in 7 giorni (7 kilos in 7 days)
7 chili in 7 giorni is another humorous comedy film starring Carlo Verdone. It is about two not very clever young doctors, Silvano Baracchi (Renato Pozzetto) and Alfio Tamburini (Carlo Verdone), who decide to open a fitness center and promise people to lose seven kilos in a week.
The operation is run chaotically, with more than a few incidents. When the enterprise fails miserably, Silvano and Alfio open a trattoria.
Listening focus: Distinguish a satirical plot promise from real health advice.
23. Divorzio all’italiana (Divorce Italian Style)
Divorzio all’italiana (1961), directed by Pietro Germi, is a dark satire about Ferdinando Cefalù (Marcello Mastroianni), who wants to escape his marriage to Rosalia. Its setting predates the introduction of civil divorce in Italy in 1970. The satire concerns the state law and social attitudes of that period.
Ferdinando schemes to exploit the period’s reduced penalties for a so-called honour killing. The film satirizes these laws and social attitudes, rather than endorsing them. The relevant honour-crime provisions were abolished in 1981. The Italian Senate records that legal change.
Listening focus: Notice the historical legal vocabulary and the irony of the dialogue.
24. Suspiria
Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) follows an American dance student at a sinister academy in Germany. This is the original film, distinct from the 2018 remake. Check the edition’s audio tracks: international productions can have several language versions. It contains graphic horror violence.
Listening focus: Use a short dialogue rather than a frightening scene if concentrating on language.
25. La sconosciuta (The unknown woman)
La sconosciuta is a psychological thriller mystery film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It is a movie that is almost impossible to get out of your head.
It follows a Ukrainian woman, Irena, whose traumatic past drives her attempt to enter the life of an Italian family. The film contains sexual violence and other disturbing material; it is a demanding choice both emotionally and linguistically.
Listening focus: Listen for what a character states explicitly and what is only implied.
26. Otto e mezzo
A highly influential classic, Otto e mezzo, or 8 1⁄2, is a surrealist comedy-drama movie directed by Federico Fellini. It stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famed film director, who is evidently based on Fellini himself.
Anselmi is suffering from a so-called director’s block, and has reached a moment of both creative and personal crisis. To seek inspiration, he embarks on a personal voyage into his childhood and lost loves.
Listening focus: Notice shifts between memory, fantasy and the present situation.
27. Viva la libertà (Long live freedom)
Directed by Roberto Andò, Viva la libertà is a comedy-drama film which deals with controversial themes, such as politics and freedom of speech. Watch it if you have at least an intermediate level of Italian listening comprehension.
The protagonist is Enrico Olivieri, played by Toni Servillo. He is a politician, whose career is in decline. He decides to flee to France, and gets replaced by his more outgoing twin brother, who leads the party towards victory.
Listening focus: Practise political and public-speaking vocabulary.
28. Ma che colpa abbiamo noi (It can’t be all our fault)
Directed by and starring Carlo Verdone, Ma che colpa abbiamo noi is a comedy film I personally like a lot. It is about eight people in a therapy group, who are forced to find new ways of coping with their problems when their psychologist dies of a heart attack in the middle of a session.
Listening focus: Notice supportive or critical responses within a group discussion.
29. Mio fratello è figlio unico (My brother is an only child)
Mio fratello è figlio unico is a political comedy directed by Daniele Luchetti. It came out in 2007. Growing up in small-town Italy during the 1960s, Manrico and Accio are working-class brothers with opposing political views, and share an ardent love of the same woman.
Listening focus: Compare political labels and family disagreement in their historical context.
30. La meglio gioventù (The best of youth)
La meglio gioventù (2003), directed by Marco Tullio Giordana, follows the Carati family across decades of Italian history, with particular attention to the brothers Nicola and Matteo. Their lives take different paths through work, politics and relationships. Its long running time makes selected scenes a practical starting point for language study.
Choose subtitles according to your goal: English can help you follow the story, while Italian captions can support listening and vocabulary study. Audio and subtitle wording may differ. Watch a short scene, note one useful phrase and use it in an original sentence before moving on.
Listening focus: Choose a short scene and summarize its time, place and participants.
