Say ‘Ciao’ to Italian Cinema’s Most Influential Movies
Modern art house cinema, and, indeed, much of the medium’s artistic styles can trace their origins to the groundbreaking work pioneered by the filmmakers of Italian cinema.
Making strides in the early silent era, the Italian film scene lay dormant stylistically, buoyed only by imitations of Hollywood comedies and fascist propaganda films promoted by the Mussolini government. It wouldn’t be until after the end of World War II that Italian cinema began to attract worldwide recognition, exploding in popularity from there on, thanks to the neorealism film movement.
Between the celebrated work of the neorealists and the surreal fantasies of Federico Fellini, the Italian film scene enthralls audiences with its vivid imagination and pioneering filmmakers. From stylish horror to the spaghetti western, Italian cinema spans diverse genres and has won fans all over the world, influencing the advancement of their respective genres.
We recognize the proud work of these Italian filmmakers and present a short guide on all Italian cinema has to offer, spanning a century from 1914 to 2013.
1. Cabiria (1914)
Ask noted film director and archivist Martin Scorsese what the most influential film of the early silent period was, and he’ll point to this epic Italian adventure. Director Giovanni Pastrone elevates the melodramatic story of a kidnapped Roman girl during the Second Punic War to heights previously deemed unimaginable in the early film industry. Much of his innovation stems from his use of the camera, radically utilizing what became known as the tracking shot to convey flow and freeing the image from the static, theatrical staging of prior works.
Directors Cecil B. DeMille and D. W. Griffith received the most academic study for the early film industry’s strides toward cinematic storytelling in America, deservedly so for what was to come. Yet, Giovanni Pastrone deserves just as much credit, if not more so, for helping introduce these pivotal innovations.
2. Thaïs (1917)
Before the Germans took the world by storm in the 1920s with the German Expressionist movement, the Italians were the first world cinema industry to dabble in their own stylistic avant-garde movement: Italian Futurism.
However, unlike the many examples of German Expressionist classics, such as Nosferatu and Metropolis, almost all Italian Futurist films became lost. The sole surviving example of this movement lies in this curiosity from 1917, Thaïs. The striking set design belies its conventional romantic tragedy story about a countess seducing a count, yet one can see the strong influence the film has had on future films.
With the Italian cinema crippled after the First World War, only able to recover by the end of the 1920s, Thaïs offers a glimpse into what might have been. Yet its legacy of strong visual design continues to live on in the movements that came about in its wake.
3. Rome, Open City (1945)
Much of Italian cinema in the 1930s can be divided into two forms: propaganda fluff pieces extolling the virtues of Benito Mussolini’s fascist government or Telefoni Bianchi, comedy films made to imitate the American screwball comedies of the period. Director Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City, born shortly after the German occupation of Italy, serves as a rebuke to both these trends and, in doing so, saw Italian cinema attract worldwide critical attention.
Working with little funds and film stock to tell the story of a Catholic priest assisting the Italian resistance, Rossellini employed mainly non-professional actors to round out his mainstream lead actors. In addition to focusing primarily on-location shooting, due to the unavailability of the Cinecittà Studios space, Rome, Open City helped set the tenets of the Italian neorealist movement out of circumstance.
First negatively received in an Italy eager for escapism following the traumas of the war, Rome, Open City quickly earned accolades worldwide for its on-location realism and sense of immediacy. Seen in retrospect as a pivotal moment in Italian cinema, the film turned critical attention to the future works of both Rossellini and one of the film’s co-writers, Federico Fellini.
4. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
No film has defined the Italian neorealist movement quite like Vittorio de Sica’s devastating Bicycle Thieves. Much like the earlier Rome, Open City, Bicycle Thieves shot almost entirely on-location and employed almost entirely amateur actors, particularly its leading man Lamberto Maggiorani.
Maggiorani portrays Antonio Ricci, a struggling Roman man who gains employment putting up advertising posters but finds his job at risk when his bicycle is stolen. With his young son Bruno in tow, Ricci scours Rome for his bicycle, ultimately leading to him taking desperate action when all hope seems lost.
Greeted with warm praise at the time of its release, Bicycle Thieves became the signature film of the Italian neorealist movement. Still celebrated for its downtrodden look at post-war Rome and the tender relationship between its onscreen father and son, the film became a guiding influence for British director Ken Loach and Indian director Satyajit Ray, both of whom would become world-renowned in their own right.
5. Germany, Year Zero (1948)
The end of Rossellini’s trilogy of war films and a direct companion piece to Rome, Open City, Germany, Year Zero conveys the utter destruction of Berlin in the immediate years after World War II. Edmund Köhler struggles to survive in the bombed-out ruins of Germany, the youngest of a poverty-stricken family still reeling from the effects of the war and the Axis government.
At the time of its release, critics viewed Germany, Year Zero as pessimistic, if not outright nihilistic, decrying Rossellini’s decision to use more studio artifice than previously. Admittedly, the film isn’t one of the most highly regarded among the neorealist films, especially compared to the likes of Rome, Open City and Bicycle Thieves. However, Germany, Year Zero offers a rare glimpse of what life in Berlin was like at the end of the most destructive fighting the world had yet seen.
6. Miracle in Milan (1951)
One would think that Vittorio de Sica’s follow-up to Bicycle Thieves would involve another gripping, neorealist tale. Instead, the director concocted this delightful urban fantasy comedy three years after that international hit, Miracle in Milan.
In a fairy tale underpinned by the neorealist style, an optimistic orphan organizes a shantytown community on the outskirts of Milan, only for the makeshift family to come under threat when oil is discovered. While still retaining much of the trademarks of the neorealist movement, particularly its use of amateur actors, Miracle in Milan embraces fantasy more owing to Charlie Chaplin than Roberto Rossellini.
From the opening of a baby found in a cabbage patch to the film’s magical escape on broomsticks, Miracle in Milan exudes fantastical wonder in its poverty-stricken setting. While far more light-hearted than typical neorealist fare, especially for its comedic satire, Miracle in Milan never loses sight of its social critique during the proceedings.
7. Umberto D. (1952)
Often seen as the final Italian neorealist film, Vittorio de Sica’s Umberto D. faced harsh criticism in its native country during its postwar economic turnaround. Like de Sica’s most famous works, the film continues to focus on the downtrodden of Italian society, in this case, the eponymous Umberto, a struggling pensioner with only his dog Flike as his closest companion.
In sharp contrast to the ruins of Rome and the struggle many felt in the immediate years after World War II, Umberto D. illustrates that even in times of great economic prosperity and modernity, there’ll always be those who continue to struggle and fall by the societal wayside.
While elements of neorealism would continue throughout the 1950s, now tinted to reflect a more optimistic outlook on Italian life, Umberto D. serves as a fitting end to the film movement’s pristine years.
8. La Strada (1954)
After years of working as a screenwriter and directing a few romantic comedies previously, Federico Fellini began attracting attention on his own merits with the poetic La Strada.
Following a traveling strongman and the girl companion he mistreats so callously, La Strada broke from the earlier neorealist style that Fellini steeped himself in and retreated to an earlier stylistic flourish more suited to the burgeoning filmmaker. Giulietta Masina, one of the most expressive actresses of postwar Italian cinema, stars as Gelsomina, perfectly capturing the character’s simple-mindedness and gentle disposition.
La Strada generated intense scrutiny upon its premiere, with a notable episode involving future filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli at the Venice Film Festival. Yet the film continued to earn acclaim as time passed, ultimately becoming a meditation on the trials and tribulations of life itself, both its whimsical highs and tragic lows.
9. Rocco and His Brothers (1960)
Made at the height of Italy’s postwar economic boom and in the shadow of southern migration to the country’s north, Rocco and His Brothers illustrates the utter disintegration of a once-close-knit family in the suburbs of industrial Milan. Luchino Visconti invokes neorealist tenants with his on-location shooting to capture encroaching modernity and working-class focus, yet on a grander scale than those earlier works. The film helped cement French actor Alan Delon, who portrays the titular Rocco, as an international star, imbuing the character with tender sensitivity and family loyalty.
Rocco and His Brothers garnered some controversy upon its release, particularly over the portrayal of a murder scene, yet its family dynamics and portrait of working-class Milan ensured its place in the canon of Italian cinema. Noted admirers of the work include Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, both of whom have cited Rocco as an instrumental influence on their own directorial careers.
10. La Dolce Vita (1960)
One of the greatest films of all time and a watershed for Italian cinema at the dawn of the 1960s, La Dolce Vita launched Fellini as an internationally renowned filmmaker with his sly satirical damnation of celebrity stardom.
Marcello Mastroianni portrays Marcello Rubini, a notorious celebrity journalist, over a hectic week in his star-adjacent career. An episodic romp through the high-class world of Rome’s rich and famous, La Dolce Vita uncovers some of the darkness found amidst the alluring glitz and glamour. Caught in the midst is Rubini himself, attracted to the excess of celebrity culture but eager for more substantial love and happiness.
La Dolce Vita continues to exert its influence both in the cinematic realm and the real world, with one of the film’s supporting characters lending his name to all future celebrity tabloid journalists forevermore: the paparazzo.
11. L’Avventura (1960)
Michelangelo Antonioni can best be described as a mood-driven filmmaker, often eschewing traditional narrative pacing for films focusing on aloofness, characterization, and visual composition.
L’Avventura set off this moodier introspection, providing the template for future tales of isolation and disaffected modernity. The film concerns itself with the disappearance of a young woman during a vacation amidst the Mediterranean, kicking off a search led by her boyfriend and her best friend. The film, admittedly, may frustrate viewers for its slower pace compared to most films on this list, something L’Avventura itself suffered upon first release.
However, if one is patient, they’ll find that L’Avventura offers an elegant portrait of disaffected individuals desperately searching for meaning in their lives, be it love or companionship. Antonioni would launch two further films to complete a trilogy speaking to modern culture malaise: 1961’s La Notte and 1962’s L’Eclisse, both highly regarded in modernist cinema.
12. The Leopard (1963)
One of the most opulent and fittingly epic Italian films ever made, Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard recreates a crucial turning point in modern Italian history on the scale that it richly deserves.
American actor Burt Lancaster stars as the aging prince Don Fabrizio Corbera during the turbulent Italian Unification era, the Risorgimento, struggling to hold onto his class and family amid changing societal winds. Not unlike in Visconti’s earlier Rocco and His Brothers, a family transforms during a tumultuous period, this time in the transition from the old aristocracy to the newly democratic Italy.
Alan Delon returns from Rocco as Corbera’s nephew Tancredi, an opportunistic young man representing the upstart new generation. Yet the film belongs entirely to Lancaster, representing a fading prestige in the face of the rising bourgeoisie. Widely celebrated as Visconti’s masterpiece, The Leopard invokes a bygone era with lavish attention to detail.
13. 8½ (1963)
No film looms larger over Italian cinema, if not most of international cinema, than Federico Fellini’s magnum opus, 8½. La Dolce Vita’s Marcello Mastroianni returns as Anselmi, an acclaimed film director suffering from director’s block and unable to figure out how to make his upcoming sci-fi movie while facing difficulties in his personal life.
Lying somewhere between cinematic autobiography, comedy-drama, and avant-garde fantasy, 8½ sees Fellini filter his artistic stream of consciousness through Anselmi’s cinematic crisis. Balancing dream logic, carnivalesque flights of fantasy, and cold reality in equal measure, the film finds Fellini’s signature exuberance emerging fully formed.
In the years following 8½‘s release, countless directors worldwide would craft their own self-reflective films, each semi-autobiographical and grappling with the filmmaking process. Yet amidst the likes of All That Jazz and Day for Night, none have entirely captured the exuberance and dreamlike flow of Fellini’s original.
14. Blood and Black Lace (1964)
If Alfred Hitchcock earned the title the “Master of Suspense” in America and the United Kingdom, Mario Bava became the “Master of Macabre” with his pioneering work in the burgeoning Italian horror genre.
Though he set the tenants of what would become giallo with The Girl Who Knew Too Much, the following year’s Blood and Black Lace crystallized the sub-genre into its quintessential form. Combining horror, thriller, and mystery into hyper-stylized form, the film finds a Roman fashion house plagued by a mysterious masked killer hellbent on obtaining a scandalous diary.
Eschewing traditional mystery tropes for lurid murder set-pieces, Blood and Black Lace found its inspiration from the yellow-covered pulp novels popular at the time, bringing Italian stylish flair to crime fiction. Though giallo didn’t start as a movement until a few years later, Bava’s film can find its descendants in future Italian horror thrillers and burgeoning American slashers.
15. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
If American westerns had the might of John Ford as their standard-bearer, then the Italian spaghetti westerns had arguably the sub-genre’s master: Sergio Leone. Taking Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, already inspired by Westerns, and fitting it back into its original genre influence, A Fistful of Dollars became Leone’s great worldwide debut. Despite a successful lawsuit by Toho alleging that the similarities were so apparent that Fistful was an unlicensed remake of Yojimbo, Leone successfully made his mark.
With a darker sensibility to the westerns proceeding it, the story of a nameless gunslinger pitting two rival gangs against one another made an international star out of Clint Eastwood as the eponymous “Man with No Name.” Fistful’s success would kickstart the acclaimed Dollars Trilogy, following up with the under-appreciated For a Few Dollars More and culminating in the genre-defining The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
16. The Battle of Algiers (1966)
An Italian-Algerian co-production, The Battle of Algiers recounts in shockingly vivid detail the Algerian War of Independence, focusing on the National Liberation Front’s activities in the titular city.
Inspired by Roberto Rossellini’s neorealist films and shot in documentary style, the film employs primarily non-professional actors to tell an engrossing moment in the struggle for Algerian independence from French rule, specifically focusing on the activities of revolutionary fighter Ali la Pointe. Yet just as much focus lies on the French paratroopers, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Mathieu, who resort to torture and assassination to break the escalating insurgency.
Drawing a divisive reception for its depictions of violence and urban warfare, especially in France, The Battle of Algiers received retrospective accolades for its historical poignancy and for providing a case study in modern war. Startlingly relevant today with its depictions of foreign occupation and guerilla resistance, The Battle of Algiers has lost none of its poignancy over the last six decades.
17. The Great Silence (1968)
Though Leone’s name remains synonymous with the spaghetti western, one other director made his mark in the genre to great success: Sergio Corbucci. After earning distinction with his own Yojimbo-riff, 1966’s Django, Corbucci worked on what became his magnum opus two years after, the deeply melancholic and subversive The Great Silence. Set in snow-swept Utah at the turn of the century, a mute gunslinger attempts to thwart bounty hunters plaguing a struggling town of sympathetic thieves.
Already changing genre conventions with its shift to a snowbound winter setting, The Great Silence turns Western cliches on their head at various points, particularly the rivalry between gunslingers Silence and Loco. The latter, played by a fittingly unhinged Klaus Kinski, proves particularly vicious, fitting the film’s harsh, morally dubious world where even the concept of “good” struggles to endure. Recognized as a seminal example of spaghetti westerns, The Great Silence’s legacy lives on in future revisionist westerns McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Hateful Eight.
18. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Following the conclusion of the Dollars Trilogy, Leone began work on what would eventually become the gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America, intending to cease working on further westerns. However, American distributor Paramount Pictures enticed Leone with additional funds and the availability of celebrated Hollywood actor Peter Fonda to make one further western.
This culminated in Leone’s signature opus, Once Upon a Time in the West, the fable of two gunslingers working together to protect a widowed homesteader from the machinations of a railroad tycoon’s sadistic hired gun.
Peter Fonda’s Frank ranks as one of the genre’s most bone-chilling villains, the actor subverting his type as a heroic figure in his Hollywood output from his first scene. Yet perhaps Once Upon a Time’s greater legacy, often relegated to a fortuitous footnote, lies in its credited story writers, both of whom would garner acclaim themselves in the years ahead, not unlike Federico Fellini before them; one was Bernardo Bertolucci and the other Dario Argento.
19. Danger: Diabolik (1968)
Comic book-based film adaptations weren’t strictly relegated to American superhero fare, with plenty of examples found in France and Italy in the decade prior to Richard Donner’s Superman.
One such example lies in Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik, a crime action saga based on the anti-hero thief of the same name created by the Giussani sisters. After suffering several humiliating setbacks from the super thief Diabolik and his girlfriend Eva Kant, the dogged Inspector Ginko forces a gangster to assist him in capturing his long-running adversary.
Taking inspiration from the booming James Bond series and the Eurospy craze of the period, Bava injects his flare for brightly colored visuals and puts them on full display in this film. Heists become increasingly audacious, and American actor John Phillip Law cuts a charismatic figure as the mysterious Diabolik. Danger: Diabolik’s inventive design, action set pieces, and comic-book aesthetic would color the works of other genre fare of the period and influence British director Edgar Wright’s work on the cult classic Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
20. The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970)
After previously working as both a screenwriter and a film critic, Dario Argento stepped behind the camera with his debut feature, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, exploding the Italian giallo genre into wider popularity. American actor Tony Musante portrays Sam Dalmas, a writer in Rome with his English girlfriend, who becomes tangled in the case of a serial killer targeting young women after witnessing the latest attack.
Drawing from Mario Bava’s previous horror mysteries, particularly the killer’s signature attire from Blood and Black Lace, Argento’s film became a well-received critical/commercial hit upon its release, a feat that had previously eluded Bava’s giallos.
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage set off a chain of imitators, popularizing the formula of the Italian giallo throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s. Argento himself would become renowned worldwide for his horror thrillers, earning the title of “Master of Horror” in Italy and proving influential in the fluorescent slashers that would dominate America in the next decade.
21. Suspiria (1977)
When looking for an example of giallo, cinephiles often cite Dario Argento’s horror masterpiece Suspiria. Elevating the visceral set pieces found in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Blood and Black Lace with a supernatural edge, the film remains unlike any other in horror cinema. As an American student settles down at a prestigious ballet school in Germany, a series of gruesome murders leads her to a witch’s coven using the school as a front for their rituals.
Suspiria encountered censorship for its theatrical release in America to ensure an R-rating and received a mixed critical reception in 1977. Yet, the film found reevaluated plaudits in the decades since, becoming Argento’s most successful American release and inspiring a unique but lackluster reimagining in 2018. Entrancing, vibrant, and gruesome at once, Suspiria remains a vivid nightmare that could only come from Argento’s lurid imagination.
22. Cinema Paradiso (1988)
A tender love letter to the magic of the cinema, Cinema Paradiso sees a famed Italian film director reminisce about his childhood in Sicily and his years-long relationship with the projectionist of his local movie theater, the Cinema Paradiso.
Credited with resurrecting the Italian film industry at the tail-end of the 1980s, the film combines coming-of-age drama and tender comedy, told against the backdrop of Italy in the second half of the 20th century. The relationship between young Salvatore and the curmudgeon projectionist Alfredo remains one of the most heartwarming friendships depicted onscreen, tinted with warm nostalgia and collected pragmatism.
Bursting with charm, youthful energy, and memories tempered by experience, Cinema Paradiso remains highly regarded as a classic, with particular praise for its mesmerizing ending montage of cinematic romances. The film stands as a compelling reminder of why audiences love the movies and a homage to the Italian cinema itself.
23. Life Is Beautiful (1997)
By 1997, actor and comedian Robert Benigni had worked as a veteran of the Italian film scene for the better part of twenty years, slowly honing his skills as a director in pure comedic work. Yet his World War II dramedy Life Is Beautiful would be the first that attracted worldwide acclaim. In addition to directing and co-writing, Benigni leads as Orefice, a Jewish bookstore owner living through World War II Italy and struggling to protect his young son from the horrors of the Holocaust.
While some may see Life is Beautiful as making light of the terror unleashed in the Holocaust and not giving the tragedy the solemnity it requires, the film deftly swings between its warm comedy and heartbreaking drama. When viewed as a tragic family melodrama, with a father entertaining his son and finding that small sliver of hope in a hopeless situation, the film showcases Benigni at the height of his artistic powers.
24. Gomorrah (2008)
Italian cinema has always had a streak for crime cinema, most famously in the mid-1970s with the emergence of the poliziotteschi genre during the Years of Lead period. Yet, Italian gangster culture has never been portrayed with such stark, modern realism as in this 2008 crime drama by director Matteo Garrone.
Based on the investigative tome by Roberto Saviano, the film describes five episodes dealing with ordinary life within organized crime in Naples, Italy. Painting an unromantic, true-to-life vision of contemporary mafia culture, Gomorrah shows how desperate men and boys are caught in a vicious cycle of systemic corruption perpetuated by the Camorra.
The film illustrates the large, international scale of the modern Italian mafia, showing its tentacles in high fashion, construction, and waste management. As riveting as American crime epics yet without the myth-making romance in that interpretation, Gomorrah tears down the gangster film with cruel reality.
25. The Great Beauty (2013)
Made in the Felliniesque style of La Dolce Vita, The Great Beauty remains director Paolo Sorrentino’s most well-known work in modern Italian cinema. The film concerns an aging writer who, coasting on the success of his one literary triumph in Rome’s high society, suddenly comes to grips with his past and takes stock of old regrets and lost loves. Sorrentino skillfully invokes the works of the old master and updates them to the present day concerning the societal circles of the well-to-do in the era of Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy.
Yet the film refuses to rest on merely leading man Toni Servillo, with just as much care paid to his circle of friends and the Romans he encounters. Beautifully shot and constructed, The Great Beauty acts as the canon of Italian cinema in microcosm, invoking the works of Rossellini, Fellini, and di Sicca in equal measure.
