Italian Films You Absolutely Must See

Italy is the quintessential cinematic setting. A set capable of evoking history, beauty, and drama. The collective imagination is marked by immortal works: the Neorealism of Bicycle Thieves, Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, or the emotional power of Life Is Beautiful. These masterpieces have defined world cinema, creating a universal myth.

But this is only part of the story. Beyond the soundstages of Cinecittà, a more complex and contradictory Italy exists. It is a cinema born from an expressive urgency, a need to tell stories that the market considers too risky or niche. It is the true creative laboratory of the seventh art in Italy, where new languages are born and bold narrative forms are tested.

This is not a simple list, but an alternative geography of the country. It is a path that unites the fundamental pillars, from the most famous films to the most courageous independent works. A territory made of livid Roman slums, alienating industrial landscapes, and magical countryside. It is a “beautiful and lost” Italy, captured only by the stubborn vision of these authors.

The first avant-garde film movement European, Italian futurism, took place in the late 10s. After a period of contraction in the 1920s, Italian movies regained strength in the 1930s with the arrival of sound cinema. A prominent Italian movie genre during this period, the Telefoni Bianchi, included the genre of gods comedy movie. While the Italian fascist government provided financial support for the production of new Italian movies, and also built the Cinecittà studios, the largest in Europe, it also participated in censorship, and many Italian movies made in the late 1930s were propaganda movies. 

A completely new period occurred at the end of the Second World War with the birth of the Italian neorealist movies, which found wide acclaim throughout the world throughout the post-war period, and which made known the Italian movies of great directors come Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. Neorealism declined in the late 1950s for lighter movies, such as those of theItalian comedy and for important Italian directors such as Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. Actresses such as Sophia Loren, Giulietta Masina and Gina Lollobrigida achieved worldwide fame during this period.

In the mid-1960s, the Italian movies of the Dollar Trilogy by Sergio Leone, with outstanding soundtracks by Ennio Morricone, have become symbols of pop culture of the western genre. Genre movies, such as i Italian thrillers, or mysteries, which influenced the horror and thriller category worldwide in the 1970s.

Obsession (1943)

It is a 1943 Italian movie based on the 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. The first feature movie by Luchino Visconti, is considered by many to be the first Italian neorealist movie, although whether that classification is accurate is debated. It has some commonalities with the calligraphy style.

Gino Costa, a drifter, stops at a small roadside gas station run by Giovanna Bragana and her older husband, Giuseppe. Giovanna is disgusted by her husband, having married him only for his money, and is immediately attracted to the younger and more attractive Gino. Giovanna serves Gino food, but they are interrupted by Giuseppe, who throws Gino out. Giovanna declares that Gino has not paid, stealing his money, as the reason for his return. Giuseppe goes after Gino, only to find that Gino is out of money, so Gino arranges to fix Giuseppe’s car in payment for the meal.

Rome, Open City (1945)

German SS soldiers attempt to imprison Giorgio Manfredi, Communist engineer and leader of the Resistance against Italian Nazis and Fascists. They think Giorgio is a policeman, however when he hints that he is a Confederate Giorgio asks him to send money to a group of Resistance fighters outside the city, as he is now recognized by the Gestapo and cannot do solo.

Few movie movements can boast the success of Italian neorealism, a post-World War II wave that participated in the battle of the working class that produced many art movies. Roberto Rossellini he was among the leading directors of neorealism. This drama of repression and resistance boasts some of the most incredible scenes in all of cinema.

Paisà (1946)

It’s a drama movie of Italian neorealist war of 1946 directed byRoberto Rossellini. In 6 independent episodes, it tells of Italy’s freedom from Allied pressure during the last phase of the Second World War. The movie premiered at the Venice International movie Festival and won numerous national and global awards.

All over the world the movie has acquired important recognitions. The French critic André Bazin chose it as the essential movie to reveal the value of Italian neorealism, highlighting its grasp of truth with an amalgam of documentary and fiction. He has achieved recognition in the United States, Belgium, Japan and Switzerland.

Germany, Year Zero (1948)

It is a 1948 italian movie directed by Roberto Rossellini, and is also the last movie in the trilogy of war movie by Rossellini, which follows Rome, Open City and Paisà. Germany Year Zero is set in Allied-occupied Germany, unlike the others which take place in German-occupied Rome and during the Allied invasion of Italy.

As in many neorealist movies, Rossellini mainly used non-professional actors. Shot in Berlin the year after its near-total destruction in World War II, it includes meaningful images of ruined Berlin and the human struggle for survival amid the destruction of Nazi Germany. Many movie critics who had previously applauded Rossellini condemned the movie as theatrical and unwise. An innovative movie, defined by Charlie Chaplin as the most beautiful Italian movie he had ever seen, it is a movie production very far from the visual canons of Hollywood.

La terra trema (1948)

It is a 1948 Italian neorealist movie directed, co-written and produced by Luchino Visconti. A loose adaptation of the 1881 novel I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga, the movie chronicles the individual sufferings of Sicilian fishermen. The movie is documentary-style, includes a cast of non-professional actors, and a mix of scripted and unscripted series. It is considered one of the important movies of the neorealist movement and is among the best movies ever.

The Valastros are a working-class fishing family in Aci Trezza, a small fishing town on the east coast of Sicily. The first part tells the fishermen’s effort to improve their lives. The fishermen ask for a higher cost for their fish, pushed by the eldest son ‘Ntoni, to rebel against the wholesalers. The fishermen end up in prison. The wholesalers realize that it is more rewarding to have ‘Ntoni and his friends fishing, so they release the fishermen. Ntoni, who has lived outside Sicily for a while, had brought back some new concepts to his country, and tries to form a cooperative, but no one joins him. Choosing to go it alone, he convinces his family to mortgage the house to buy a boat and starts his new life.

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

In the Roman district of Val Melaina after the Second World War, Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) has no hope of work to support his wife Maria (Lianella Carell) and their child Bruno (Enzo Staiola). Since the activity requires a bicycle, he advises Maria that she cannot purchase one. Maria takes the sheets of her dowry off the bed and takes them to the pawnshop, where they are paid in suitable cash for the purchase of Antonio’s bicycle.

The neorealist artwork of Vittorio de Sica is rooted in a world where owning a bicycle is essential to work, yet it could also be set in a world where lack of a car, or affordable daycare, or a home, or social security are overwhelming barriers to putting food on the table. This is what makes it a movie both for post-war Italy and for any era.

Apennines

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Documentary, by Emiliano Dante, Italy, 2017.
Appennino is a cinematographic diary that begins with the slow reconstruction of L 'Aquila, the director's city, in Italy, and continues with the earthquakes in the central Apennines of 2016-17, up to the very long and exhausting asylum of the new earthquake victims in S. Benedetto of Tronto. An intimate and ironic, lyrical and geometric story, where the question of living in a seismic area becomes the tool to reflect on the very meaning of making cinema of reality.

LANGUAGE: Italian
SUBTITLES: English

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Abandoned (1955)

It is a 1955 Italian movie set during the aftermath of the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943 during World War II. The movie went to the 1955 Venice movie Festival. It is the directorial launch ofFrancis Maselli. The music was composed by Giovanni Fusco and staged by Ennio Morricone.

In the summer of 1943, the Countess Luisa and her son Andrea leave Milan because of the Allied battles in the city and retire to their property outside the city, where they host 2 of Andrea’s peers, her cousin Carlo, the son of a fascist for Switzerland, and his friend Ferruccio, son of an army officer who took part in the war. The 3 young people kill time in sweet idleness, sunbathing along the river, barely aware of the ongoing quarrel, thanks to the broadcasts of Radio London. They begin to become aware of the gravity of the scenario when the displaced people arrive from the city and Andrea is obliged to accept hosting some of them on the property, to the discomfort of his mother.

The Cry (1957)

It is a 1957 Italian movie directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Steve Cochran, Alida Valli, Betsy Blair and Dorian Gray. Based on a short story by Antonioni, the movie tells of a man who wanders aimlessly, far from his city, far from the woman he liked, and ends up being mentally and socially unstable. Il Grido won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International movie Festival in 1957 and the Silver Ribbon for Best Cinematography (Gianni di Venanzo) in 1958.

Aldo worked at the sugar factory in Goriano for 7 years. His fiancée, Irma, discovers that her partner, who had left for Australia years earlier to look for work, has recently died there. Irma goes to the sugar factory and brings Aldo lunch. Aldo returns to your house where they discuss the death of his spouse. Aldo says that after 7 years they can finally get married and legitimize their little girl, Rosina. The next day, Irma reveals to him that she likes someone else. Aldo can’t believe his words. Over the next few days he frantically tries to change her mind, but to no avail, and the affair ends with him slapping her in public.

The Adventure (1960)

This italian movie is based on a story by Michelangelo Antonioni written with co-writers Elio Bartolini and Tonino Guerra, an arthouse movie about the disappearance of a lady (Lea Massari) during a boat trip in the Mediterranean, and also about the subsequent betrayal of her admirer (Gabriele Ferzetti) with his partner (Monica Vitti) It was movieed in Rome, the Aeolian Islands and Sicily in 1959 in difficult economic and logistical conditions. A work of art to see to understand the essence of Antonioni’s cinema and its effect on all other moviemakers.

While Claudia waits downstairs, Anna and Sandro have sex at her house. The following morning the personal luxury yacht reaches the Aeolian Islands in northern Sicily. Having passed Basiluzzo, Anna impulsively dives into the water for a swim and Sandro leaps after her. Sandro tries to save her when Anna sobs that she actually saw a shark. Anna confesses to Claudia that the shark was a lie to arouse Sandro’s interest. After seeing Claudia liking her blouse, he tells her to put it on, that it fits much better than her, and that she can keep it. Anna is dissatisfied with Sandro’s long business trips, who ignores her problems and sleeps on the rocks.

Black Sunday (1960)

A witch and her evil servant return from the grave and embark on a bloody strategy to recover the body of the witch’s descendant. Movie director:Mario Bava. Starring: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani. Modern Italian cinema critics panned the movie negatively, although some enjoyed the cinematography. The movie has nice camera movements and Bava’s visual style produces poetry and feeling as well as fear. Bava is an author of pictorial movies and this is among his best works.

Corona days

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Drama, by Fabio Del Greco, Italy, 2020.
A man remains alone at home due to the Corona virus emergency measures. Solitude, time, and space become his adversaries, while imagination, memories, and the yearning for freedom become his allies. Director Fabio Del Greco intimately and personally documents the days of Corona virus isolation, filming outdoor scenes exclusively with a smartphone. The chronicle of these peculiar days serves as a catalyst for reflection on the relativity of time and space, and how freedom is something that can transcend reality to find its place within our souls.

In the times of the Corona virus, a genuine and instinctive filmmaker like Del Greco has reaped the fruits of his eccentric "cinediary" crafted during the quarantine weeks. He captured his own solitude up close, and from a safe distance, that of his friends and relatives. Above all, he seized the limited "hours of air" granted by authorities to film in a world emptied of humanity and subjected to rigorous police checks. All seen through the lens of an author who, as usual, is playful, disillusioned, and subtly ironic, even when he steps in as an actor. As he continues to explore reality, amidst melancholic insights and flashes of irony, Fabio Del Greco transcends this initial intent and transforms his feature film into a set of Russian nesting dolls, where diverse audiovisual contributions converge. These contributions may be chronologically disparate, yet they are all profoundly stimulating and laden with meaning. The interplay between present and past, expertly orchestrated even in the editing, creates a short-circuit where the past isn't merely an almanac of memories but another escape into the realm of imagination. As a socio-political critique surfaces, albeit legitimate, the narrative gradually shifts toward a broader existential framework.

LANGUAGE: italian
SUBTITLES: english, french, german, portuguese, spanish

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Eyes Without a Face (1960)

The instructor Génessier, a well-known plastic surgeon who deals with transplants, is responsible for a car accident from which his daughter Christiane came out alive but with a terribly mutilated face. With the help of an assistant, he lures women into his workshop to rip the skin off their faces and use it on his daughter’s wounds. An operation so difficult that it is necessary to repeat it systematically, after each failure of the grafts. Christiane, a mask on her face, still does not understand absolutely anything …

French critics claimed that it was an imitation of the German Expressionism or simply a mistake for the director’s leap from documentaries to genre movies. The British press claimed that when a director like Georges Francis does a movie horror, one cannot try to find allegories or levels of reading. Eyes Without a Face was re-released theatrically in September 1986 to accompany retrospectives at London’s National movie Theater and the Cinémathèque Française, and the movie began to be re-evaluated. French reviews of the movie have been particularly more encouraging than they were upon its preliminary release. Audiences discovered the poetic nature of the movie by comparing it with the work of the French poet and director Jean Cocteau. Franju uses a strange poem in which Cocteau’s inspiration appears.

Accattone (1961)

Vittorio (Franco Citti), nicknamed “Accattone”, leads a life of slacker until his street woman, Maddalena, is exploited by her competitors and convicted. With no steady income, he initially tries to make up with his child’s mother, but is rejected by his parents; whereupon he meets a girl from the township, Stella, and attempts to make her a prostitute for him, but when his first client beats her, she runs away. Accattone tries to console her, but leaves her, after she has an unusual vision of her own death, to go with her friends.

Although it was shot with a script, Accattone is a cinematic version of Pasolini’s early stories, especially Ragazzi di vita and Una vita violenta. It was the first movie of Pierpaolo Pasolini as a director, and uses directing styles that would surely have been seen as Pasolini’s trademark characteristics: non-professional actors from the place where the movie is set, it is among the excellent cinematographic works to be seen certainly on people affected by hardship.

Il posto (1961)

It is a 1961 Italian movie directed by Ermanno Olmi. Typically cited as Olmi’s first major work, it is an example of Italian neorealism. Olmi won the David di Donatello for best director for his deal with the movie. The movie tells the story of Domenico, a boy who gives up school because his family needs money and has to go to work. Landing a job at a large city corporation, he goes through a strange series of exams, tests and interviews. During a short break from rehearsals, he meets Antonietta, a girl who, like him, has given up on her education because she needs money to support herself and her mother. During this meeting, they have coffee in a café and talk about their lives and aspirations. Domenico is attracted to her, but they are separated when they get jobs in various departments.

The Eclipse (1962)

It is a 1962 Italian arthouse movie written and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and played by Alain Delon and Monica Vitti. Shot between Rome and Verona, the story follows a girl (Vitti) who has a relationship with a young stockbroker at the financial market (Delon). When a solar eclipse occurs in Florence, Antonioni associated some of his inspirations with the movie. The movie is the end of a trilogy and is preceded by L’Avventura (1960) and La Notte (1961). L’Eclisse won the Special Jury Prize at the 1962 Cannes movie Festival and was chosen for the Palme d’Or. Defined by Martin Scorsese as the boldest movie of the trilogy, it is among the director’s best-known works.

One Monday in July 1961, at dawn, Vittoria, a young literary translator, ends her relationship with Riccardo in his apartment in the EUR real estate district of Rome, after a long night of discussions. Riccardo tries to persuade her to stay, but she informs him that she no longer loves him and leaves. As she strolls through the deserted early morning streets past the EUR water tower, Riccardo joins her and walks her through a wooded place to her apartment, where they say goodbye for the last time.

Feast

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Documentary, by Franco Piavoli, 2018, Italy.
Franco Piavoli, author of the masterpiece "The Blue Planet", returns to the director to capture the "evening of the day of celebration", between Leopardi and Pascoli. A journey between the poetic and the anthropological. What is a "party"? What does it represent, from a symbolic and material point of view? What burdens, or what relieves, does it bring to people's minds? And what value does it take when it turns into a collective act? It does not need any tinsel, Festa, and arrives right in the spectator's heart without stratification, without any deviation from the path, without any addition.

Language: Italian
Subtitles: English

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Black Sabbath (1963)

Boris Karloff stars in a trio of scary stories including an abused call girl, a vampire making the most of his home, and a nurse who is being haunted by her ring’s rightful owner. Movie director: Mario Bava. Starring: Michèle Mercier, Lidia Alfonsi, Boris Karloff, Mark Damon. The scariest element of the movie is its style, especially the dirty and heavy interiors of The Drop of Water, while the performance is less convincing. Even the sound and optical forcings sometimes appear too extreme: a greater rigor would have benefited the movie.

The Ape Woman (1964)

It is a 1964 Italian movie directed by Marco Ferreri. It participated in the 1964 Cannes movie Festival. The movie was motivated by the real-life story of Julia Pastrana, a 19th century woman. Marie, the “Monkey Woman”, is completely covered in hair; the entrepreneur Focaccia finds it in a convent in Naples; he marries her as a condition imposed by the nuns, and begins to show her to the general public. He tries to give it to a boy who appreciates his virginity, but she is reluctant. After tasting success in Paris, the woman dies in childbirth. Focaccia recovers the body from the naturalistic museum and exhibits it in Naples.

Ugly Birds and Little Birds (1966)

It is a 1966 Italian movie directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The film participated in the 1966 Cannes movie Festival where he received a “Special Mention” for Totò. The movie can be described as partly neorealist and deals with Marxist issues of hardship and class conflict. It includes the popular Italian comic actor Totò accompanied on a journey by his son, played by Ninetto Davoli. This is the last movie starring Totò before his death in 1967.

Totò and his son Ninetto wander through the Roman countryside. During their walk, they observe a body being taken from a house following a murder. They next come across a talking crow, which is explained in the captions: “For the benefit of those who were not taking note or remain in doubt, we advise you that the crow is – as you claim – a left-wing intellectual of the type alive before the death of Palmiro Togliatti. After many failures the 2 characters find the language of birds and manage to preach love to families, but the hawks continue to kill and eat the sparrows, as it is in their nature.

Dillinger Is Dead (1969)

It is a 1969 Italian drama directed by Marco Ferreri. In the cast Michel Piccoli, Anita Pallenberg and Annie Girardot. The story is a darkly satirical mix of dream and reality. The movie follows a bored and alienated man through the night at his home. The title originates from a newspaper article included in the movie declaring the death of American gangster John Dillinger. The movie appeared objectionable in its preliminary release for its subject matter and violence, but is now generally considered the most important piece of art in Ferreri’s movieography. He was well known to the major French movie publication Cahiers du cinéma and Ferreri later lived and worked in Paris for several years.

Glauco, a middle-aged commercial gas mask designer, is tired of his profession. After discussing alienation with a partner at the factory, he returns home. His wife lies in bed with a headache but has left his dinner on the table, which has gone cold. He is disappointed with the food and starts preparing himself a better meal.

The Kempinsky method

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Drama, by Federico Salsano, Italy 2020.
The introspective imaginary road movie of a man in the maze of his own mind, his memories of his youth, his never dormant passions and contradictory truths. The road is made of water, the destination is falsely unknown. His traveling companions are three mysterious men, projections of his imagination and of different aspects of his personality: the perennial melancholy, the crazy creative, the introverted child. He is also followed by a female presence that tells the umpteenth human story. At a certain point of the crossing he decides to abandon the boat and his ghosts of him diving into the sea and arrives swimming on a deserted beach, naked, with a small Pinocchio puppet closed by a padlock.

Food for thought
Life is like a long sea voyage and the human being is a small creature confronting immensity. Sometimes the ocean is calm, other times there are terrible storms. Sometimes we are captains of a boat with a well-defined route, other times we are shipwrecked in search of a land in which to save ourselves. But despite the long journey and the movement in physical space, there are other questions that resonate in the mind: who are these men I travel with? What is the mystery of this immense mass of water that seems to be made of my memories? You can circumnavigate the whole world but the main question always remains the same: who am I really?

LANGUAGE: italian
SUBTITLES: english, spanish, portuguese, german, french

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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

It is a 1970 Italian movie directed by the master of Italian Giallo Dario Argento in his directorial debut. The movie is the first in the Giallo italiano category which ushered in a long period of success for this kind of movie. Upon its release, the movie was a big hit at the box office. It was also a success outside Italy.

Sam Dalmas is an American writer vacationing in Rome with his English girlfriend, Julia, who is going through writer’s block and is on the verge of returning to America, however he witnesses a woman being attacked in an art gallery by of a strange guy with black gloves and raincoat. Trying to reach him, Sam is trapped between 2 mechanically operated glass doors and can only see the man escape. The girl, Monica Ranieri, was attacked and the authorities took Sam’s passport to prevent him from leaving the country. The attacker is believed to be a serial killer who’s been eliminating women all over town, and Sam is a major witness.

The House with Laughing Windows (1976)

Stefano, a young restorer of works of art, is commissioned to restore a fresco located in the church of a remote village. Director: Pupi Avati. Protagonists: Lino Capolicchio, Francesca Marciano, Gianni Cavina, Giulio Pizzirani. The fans of the Italian horror movies they might find this gothic movie unlike many titles in this movie category, but in this one it truly surpasses its contemporaries: a sense of constant dread that expands intolerably as the story progresses.

Suspiria (1977)

An American student at a German ballet academy realizes the school is a front for something ominous in the midst of a series of grisly murders. Director: Dario Argento. Starring: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé. Dario Argento is a director who knows exactly how to make a thriller. The movie nails you to your chair, keeps you tense, puts doubts in your head. It is a fascinating, sophisticated, extremely vibrant and bizarre work, with superb photography by Vittorio Storaro. Charming and meaningful, if undermined by lame dialogue, Suspiria is mostly blood and fear. The plot is kept to a minimum and compared to his previous movies the director chooses to focus on the visuals.

The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)

It is a 1978 Italian movie written and directed by Ermanno Olmi. The movie tells the story of Lombard peasant life on a late 19th century farm. It bears some similarities to the earlier Italian neo-realist movement, and the parts were played by real peasants and residents, rather than professional actors. The movie won fourteen awards including the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the César Award for best foreign movie. The initial variation of the movie is spoken in Bergamo Lombardo.

4 peasant families who worked farms for the same master scrape together a meager profit in 1898 in the Bergamo countryside. Over the course of a year, children are born, crops are planted, animals are slaughtered, and couples are married; prayers and stories are exchanged on the families’ shared farm. Transformative undercurrents are sensed by peasants, but mostly ignored, a communist rebel gives a speech at a regional fair, and when a newly wed couple visit the big city of Milan and witness the arrest of political prisoners. Spring arrives, the father cuts down a tree to make wooden clogs that his child can wear on his feet to go to school, however the landowner notices this, and the family is forced to leave the land.

The Embalmer (2002)

It is an Italian noir film from 2002 directed by Matteo Garrone, presented in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the 55th Cannes Film Festival. The film is inspired by the Roman news stories of the “dwarf from Termini” Domenico Semeraro, a homosexual taxidermist, killed by his protégé, Armando Lovaglio, in 1990. Garrone’s intent was to tell the story of a man who seeks a difficult love a handsome young boy. The leading actors are Ernesto Mahieux, who won the David di Donatello for best actor in the role of Peppino, Valerio Foglia Manzillo, at his film launch in the role of Valerio, and Elisabetta Rocchetti in the role of Deborah, Valerio’s companion. The film was shot in Villaggio Coppola, a district of Castel Volturno known for being built illegally, as well as in Cremona. The songs were composed at Banda Osiris.

Gomorrah (2008)

It is a 2008 Italian crime film directed by Matteo Garrone, based on the non-fiction publication of the same name by Roberto Saviano, who also collaborated on the film’s screenplay. It tells of the Casalesi clan, a criminal group within the Camorra based in Naples and Caserta in the Campania region The film was released in Italy on May 16, 2008 and had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2008, followed by launch in New York City and Los Angeles on February 13, 2009, and won the Grand Prix at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival as well as 7 David di Donatello Awards, including Best Film and Best Director. It also won five awards at the 2008 European Film Awards.

What excites about Gomorrah, and also makes it feel different from many American crime films, is both its meaningful portrayal of violence and its understanding of how everywhere Mafia guns go. Gomorra is a deeply moral film, which does not tolerate any darkness or attenuating in its infernal vision. Director Martin Scorsese, who enjoyed the film, allowed his name to be used for advertising and marketing purposes when the film was released in the United States.

Suspiria (2018)

More than forty years after its release, Dario Argento’s classic horror has a remake, directed by Luca Guadagnino. Placed in a dance school where murders of women occur, Suspiria uses Dakota Johnson for her lead role, accompanied by Chloë Grace Moretz, Mia Goth, Tilda Swinton and Sylvie Testud as overbearing and dangerous instructors. Among the most anticipated scary movies of 2018 is a movie that transforms Dario Argento’s initial movie into something totally different, with a broad directorial language that makes it much more than just supernatural horror: a fantastic arthouse movie, coming out of the recents of the scary genre. Undoubtedly among the best movies made in the last 20 years.

Abacuc (2015)

And experimental movie that challenges the audience with innovations that really manages to find new elements in the cinematic language, which is now very rare these days. The movie tells the daily life of a surreal character who is not easily forgotten, Abacuc, a man condemned to wander in an icy provincial town in northern Italy that looks like a frozen, lifeless hell. Abacuc is a man weighing almost 200 kilos, who invests his time in limbo away from any kind of sensation, he mainly goes to the cemetery, to the theme parks of the Romagna Riviera. Abacuc represents the need of cinematographic art to self-extinguish and implode in itself. The work of director Luca Ferri is very important, because it creates new paths of avant-garde cinema, paths forgotten and ignored by critics and the public but which are the foundations of the cinema of the future.

One Man Up

Naples, 1980s. The parallel lives of two men with the same name, Antonio Pisapia, intersect and diverge. One is a successful singer, Tony, a cocaine addict and brazen; the other is a shy and rigorous footballer, Antonio. Both are at the peak of their careers, but a cruel fate will push them towards an inexorable and tragicomic decline, forcing them to confront failure, loneliness, and the search for an impossible freedom.

With his dazzling debut, Paolo Sorrentino lays the foundation for all his future cinema. One Man Up is not just a film; it’s a poetic manifesto. Here, the themes that will become his obsession are born: the loneliness of public figures, the dialectic between success and failure, the grotesque mask that hides a deep melancholy. Inspired by the real figures of Franco Califano and Agostino Di Bartolomei, the film transcends biography to become a universal metaphor for existence.

It is also the beginning of the almost symbiotic artistic partnership with Toni Servillo, whose Tony Pisapia is already a perfect Sorrentinian archetype: a man who hides his fragility behind an impenetrable armor of cynicism and irony. The style is already unmistakable: sumptuous direction that finds the sublime in the sordid, brilliant dialogues, and a unique ability to transform news stories into an existential parable.

The Embalmer

Peppino, a dwarf taxidermist as skilled as he is ambiguous, lives and works in the desolate Villaggio Coppola, a non-place on the Caserta coast. His solitary life is turned upside down by his encounter with Valerio, a young man of extraordinary beauty whom he hires as an assistant. A morbid relationship of dependence and control develops between the two, a deadly triangle completed by the arrival of Deborah, Valerio’s girlfriend, destined for a tragic end.

Before the international success of Gomorrah, Matteo Garrone had already demonstrated a rare ability to scrutinize the depths of the human soul with a raw and almost tactile style. The Embalmer is a fundamental work that marks a turning point in new Italian cinema, an atypical noir that transforms into a very dark melodrama. Inspired by a real news story, the film uses the craft of taxidermy as a powerful metaphor: Peppino does not just embalm animals, but tries to possess and petrify Valerio’s beauty, to make it eternal and harmless.

The spectral landscape of Villaggio Coppola, with its illegal and decadent architecture, is not just a backdrop, but a mirror of the characters’ inner desolation. Garrone films the bodies and places with an unfiltered realism, making the grotesque disturbing and plausible. It is a physical cinema, which immerses the viewer in an atmosphere of moral and affective putrescence, marking the birth of a new Italian noir, detached from American models and deeply rooted in the country’s social anxieties.

The Consequences of Love

For eight years, Titta Di Girolamo has lived a sterile and methodical existence in an anonymous hotel in Italian-speaking Switzerland. His every day is marked by an immutable routine, by an apparent apathy that hides an unconfessable secret: he is serving a sentence on behalf of the Cosa Nostra. The encounter with Sofia, the young and curious hotel barmaid, cracks his armor of loneliness, triggering a chain of events that will lead him to make a gesture as romantic as it is fatal.

If One Man Up was an explosion of talent, The Consequences of Love is its stylistic consecration. Paolo Sorrentino directs a work of almost geometric formal perfection, where every shot, every camera movement, every silence is calibrated to build an existential prison around its protagonist. The film is a thriller of the soul, a metaphysical noir that transforms a mafia story into a profound meditation on freedom, destiny, and the price of emotions.

Toni Servillo gives one of his most iconic performances, embodying the loneliness and dignity of a man who has given up everything. Sorrentino’s direction is glacial yet vibrant, capable of creating an unbearable tension through the repetition of gestures and the masterful use of the soundtrack. It is a cinema that abandons action to focus on inner states, a modernist work that shows how formal elegance can become the most effective tool for telling the story of the chaos of the human soul.

Gomorrah

Based on the investigative novel by Roberto Saviano, the film weaves together five stories that reveal the pervasive power of the Camorra in the Neapolitan hinterland. From the disposal of toxic waste to high fashion, from drug trafficking to the criminal aspirations of two overexcited youths, the events show a system where violence is the only law and human life has a negligible price. A choral and ruthless fresco that documents the normality of evil.

Gomorrah is a point of no return for Italian cinema and for the representation of organized crime. Matteo Garrone carries out a radical operation: he abandons all mafia romanticism to adopt an almost documentary-like, raw, and observational style. There are no heroes or anti-heroes, only individuals trapped in a mechanism bigger than themselves. The camera follows the characters, recording their actions with a coldness that amplifies the horror.

The film is an immersive and suffocating experience. The use of non-professional actors, the thick dialect, and the real locations contribute to creating an oppressive sense of authenticity. Garrone does not explain, he shows. He rejects the didacticism of traditional investigative cinema to restore reality in its fragmented brutality. Its international success demonstrated the existence of a global audience hungry for Italian stories told without filters, redefining the genre and influencing an entire generation of directors.

Reality

Luciano, a charming and exuberant Neapolitan fishmonger, makes ends meet with small scams and dreams of a different life. Pushed by his family, he auditions for “Big Brother.” That seemingly harmless experience triggers a totalizing obsession in him. Convinced that he is constantly being watched by the reality show’s production, Luciano spirals into a paranoia that progressively distances him from reality, turning his dream of celebrity into a nightmare.

After the raw reality of Gomorrah, Matteo Garrone surprises everyone with a dark, grotesque, and painful fable about contemporary Italy and its obsession with fame. Reality is a ruthless critique of the “spectacularization of nothing,” of a society where appearing has replaced being. Garrone abandons the documentary style to embrace a more Fellini-esque register, using hyperbole and the surreal to describe the absurdity of a world shaped by television.

The film is a bitter parable about the loss of innocence and human fragility in the face of the mirage of easy success. The performance of Aniello Arena, an actor with a past as a life prisoner, is extraordinary for its ability to embody Luciano’s good-natured naivety and his subsequent descent into madness. Awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes, Reality confirms the versatility of an author capable of reading the pathologies of the present with a sharp and profoundly human gaze.

The Great Beauty

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ8O-Y2CXk8)

Jep Gambardella is a 65-year-old journalist, charming and disillusioned, the king of the social nights of a decadent and magnificent Rome. After a single successful novel written in his youth, he has wasted his talent in a life of parties, chatter, and cynicism. The news of his first love’s death forces him to come to terms with the past, pushing him on a dreamlike journey through the city, in search of a lost meaning and a “great beauty” that seems to have vanished.

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, The Great Beauty is the work that established Paolo Sorrentino worldwide. Often compared to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, the film is actually a profoundly personal and contemporary work, a requiem for a decaying world and a poignant meditation on time, memory, and artistic creation. Sorrentino’s Rome is an unreal stage, a labyrinth of lavish terraces, ancient palaces, and silent ruins, where the sacred and the profane mix in a melancholic carnival.

The direction is a triumph of visual virtuosity, a symphony of opulent images that capture the ephemeral beauty and profound emptiness of Jep’s life. Toni Servillo, once again, is sublime in giving body and voice to a complex character, a cynical aesthete who hides an incurable nostalgia for innocence. It is a film that questions the meaning of art and life in an era that seems to have lost all values, a masterpiece that has brought Italian cinema back to the center of the international stage.

Dogman

In a desolate suburb on the Lazio coast, Marcello runs a dog grooming shop, “Dogman.” He is a meek man, loved by everyone in the neighborhood, who tries to make ends meet for the love of his daughter. His quiet life, however, is plagued by his relationship with Simoncino, a violent and cocaine-addicted former boxer who terrorizes the community. Subjugated and humiliated, Marcello will suffer an injustice that will push him to plan a terrible and unexpected revenge.

Drawing freely from one of the most heinous Italian crime stories, the crime of the Canaro della Magliana, Matteo Garrone creates a universal work about oppression and the struggle for dignity. Dogman is an urban western, a moral parable set in a world abandoned by God and the law, where only the law of the strongest prevails. The spectral landscape of Villaggio Coppola, the same as in The Embalmer, becomes the stage for an archetypal clash between David and Goliath.

Marcello Fonte, awarded Best Actor at Cannes, gives an unforgettable performance, embodying the fragility and goodness of an ordinary man pushed to the limit. His humanity, expressed in his love for dogs and his daughter, clashes with the bestial violence of Simoncino. Garrone’s direction is essential and powerful, capable of creating almost unbearable tension and exploring, without any moral judgment, the thin line that separates the victim from the executioner.

The Four Times

In a small, ancient village in Calabria, life flows according to immutable rhythms. An old, sick shepherd spends his last days tending to his goats. His soul, according to Pythagorean doctrine, will be reincarnated in a newborn kid, then in a majestic fir tree, and finally in the charcoal produced from that tree. An eternal cycle of transformation that unites the human, animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms in a single, silent symphony.

Michelangelo Frammartino creates a radical and poetic work, a film almost devoid of dialogue that relies solely on the power of images and the sounds of nature. The Four Times is a pure example of “slow cinema,” a contemplative cinema that invites the viewer to slow down, to observe, to perceive the invisible connections that bind every form of life. It is not a documentary, but a visual poem that explores complex philosophical concepts with disarming simplicity.

Frammartino’s direction is rigorous and patient. The camera, often fixed, captures the austere beauty of the Calabrian landscape and the rituality of daily gestures, finding the universal in the particular. It is a cinema that rejects narrative conventions to become a sensory and spiritual experience, a courageous work that demonstrates the ability of independent cinema to explore new linguistic territories and achieve a rare depth.

Caesar Must Die

In the high-security wing of Rebibbia prison in Rome, a group of inmates, many of whom are convicted of mafia crimes, stage William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” During rehearsals, the words of the English playwright merge with their lives, their memories, and their codes of honor. The line between fiction and reality blurs, and the theater becomes a mirror in which to reflect on themes such as betrayal, power, and freedom.

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Caesar Must Die is an extraordinary work that hybridizes documentary, fiction, and theater. The Taviani brothers, masters of Italian cinema, create a powerful and moving film in which the strength of Shakespeare’s text is amplified by the truth of the faces and experiences of the inmate-actors. The choice to shoot almost entirely in black and white within the prison walls creates a claustrophobic and timeless atmosphere.

The film explores the cathartic function of art. For these men, acting is not just an escape, but a way to confront their past and their condition. The famous final line of one of the protagonists – “Since I have known art, this cell has become a prison” – encapsulates the film’s paradox: art frees the mind, but makes the awareness of physical imprisonment even more acute. A work of rare intelligence and humanity.

Sacro GRA

Far from the monumental center of Rome, another city pulses along the edges of the Grande Raccordo Anulare, the highway that encircles the capital. Here, in this territory invisible to most, live and work extraordinary characters: a botanist who studies palms infested by a parasite, an eel fisherman who lives on a barge on the Tiber, a decadent nobleman, a paramedic who assists victims of road accidents. A mosaic of lives on the borders of the metropolis.

The first and only documentary to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Sacro GRA is a work that redefines the boundaries of reality cinema. Gianfranco Rosi, with his patient and curious gaze, immerses himself for years in this submerged world, finding the epic in the everyday and poetry in the ordinary. The film has no thesis to prove nor a story to tell in the traditional sense; it is rather a human fresco, a “secular mystery” that reveals the humanity hidden in seemingly anonymous places.

Rosi’s direction is precise and pictorial. Each shot is carefully composed, transforming the marginal landscapes of the Raccordo into scenes full of meaning. The director does not interview his characters, but observes them living, capturing moments of intimacy, irony, and melancholy. It is a cinema that requires the viewer to abandon narrative expectations to be carried away by a flow of images and encounters, discovering the unexpected beauty that lies on the margins of the visible.

A Ciambra

In Gioia Tauro, Calabria, lives the Ciambra, a settled Romani community. Pio Amato is a fourteen-year-old who wants to grow up fast. He smokes, drinks, and follows his older brother Cosimo like a shadow, learning the tricks of the trade: petty theft and scams. His world is a complex balance between his family, the local Italians, and the African migrants. When Cosimo is arrested, it’s time for Pio to prove he’s a man.

Jonas Carpignano, an Italian-American director, completely immerses himself in the reality he portrays, creating a work of shocking authenticity. The second chapter of his trilogy on Gioia Tauro, A Ciambra is a film that blurs the lines between fiction and documentary. The director works with the real Amato family, who play themselves, building a narrative that stems directly from their lives. The camera, handheld and nervous, follows Pio, drawing us into his world with a rare physicality and immediacy.

The film is a powerful coming-of-age story set in a context of social marginalization, but it avoids all stereotypes. Carpignano does not judge his characters, but observes them with empathy, showing the complexity of their bonds, their codes of honor, and their struggle for survival. It is an immersive cinema that takes us to a specific place to tell a universal story about family, friendship, and the difficult choices that mark the transition to adulthood.

The Intruder

Giovanna runs “La Masseria,” a recreational center for children in a tough neighborhood of Naples, an oasis of legality and hope snatched from decay. The precarious balance of her community is threatened when Maria, the young wife of a recently arrested Camorra boss, seeks refuge in the center with her two children. Her presence unleashes fear and anger among the other parents, forcing Giovanna into an impossible choice between welcome and security.

Leonardo Di Costanzo, with a background as a documentarian, creates a work of extraordinary psychological finesse and moral rigor. The Intruder is not a film about the Camorra, but about those who are forced to live with its shadow, about the complex dynamics of a community trying to build an alternative. The film takes place almost entirely within the walls of the center, an enclosed space that becomes the stage for a universal ethical dilemma.

The direction is minimalist and observational, attentive to gestures, glances, and unspoken tensions. Di Costanzo does not offer easy solutions, but explores the gray areas of solidarity, fear, and responsibility. It is a civil cinema in the noblest sense of the term, which questions the foundations of coexistence and the difficulty of drawing a clear line between right and wrong in a context where every choice has unpredictable consequences.

Black Souls

Three brothers from Africo, in Aspromonte, embody three different destinies linked to the ‘Ndrangheta. Luigi is an international drug trafficker who lives between Milan and Amsterdam. Rocco is an entrepreneur who launders dirty money, seeking an impossible bourgeois respectability. Luciano, the eldest, has remained in Calabria, clinging to an illusion of pastoral purity. A reckless act by Luciano’s young son will reignite an old feud, dragging everyone into an inescapable spiral of violence.

Francesco Munzi creates a powerful and austere work that elevates the mafia film to the stature of Greek tragedy. Far from the spectacularization of Gomorrah, Black Souls is a film that delves into the anthropological and psychological roots of crime, exploring the weight of blood, land, and a past that cannot be erased. The harsh and archaic landscape of Aspromonte is not just a backdrop, but a character that looms over the destinies of men.

The direction is rigorous, almost ritualistic, attentive to the silences and gestures of a world governed by ancient codes. Munzi avoids the clichés of the genre to focus on the inner drama of his characters, on their impossible struggle to escape a fate already written. It is a film that offers no hope, but a lucid and terrible understanding of the logic of revenge, a masterpiece of tension and depth that has left an indelible mark on Italian cinema.

Don’t Be Bad

Ostia, 1995. Vittorio and Cesare have been friends forever, “brothers for life.” Their days are spent dealing synthetic drugs, brawling, and clubbing. They live in a marginal and violent world where the future seems not to exist. When Vittorio, after a near-death experience, decides to change his life and find an honest job, he tries to drag Cesare along with him, but saving him from his self-destructive demon will be an almost impossible task.

The spiritual testament of Claudio Caligari, a cult director who passed away shortly after filming ended, Don’t Be Bad is a powerful and desperate work, a punch to the gut that ideally closes the trilogy on Roman marginality that began with Amore tossico. The film is a Pasolinian tale, raw and lyrical at the same time, that looks at its characters without judgment, but with a deep and sorrowful humanity.

The production of the film itself is an act of independent cinema, completed thanks to the tenacity of actor Valerio Mastandrea and an entire film community. Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli, in two extraordinary performances, give body and soul to a lost generation, trapped in a hopeless present. It is a visceral cinema that pulls no punches and that gives us back a piece of Italian reality with a brutal and moving sincerity.

Piranhas

Naples, Rione Sanità. Nicola and his friends are a group of fifteen-year-olds who spend their days on scooters, playing video games, and experiencing first loves. Tired of suffering the abuses of local clans and seeing their families pay protection money, they decide to take matters into their own hands. They get weapons and form their own “paranza,” a criminal group of teenagers, to conquer control of the neighborhood. But the game will soon turn into a spiral of violence with no return.

Based on the novel of the same name by Roberto Saviano, Claudio Giovannesi’s film is a lucid and chilling portrait of the “Gomorrah generation.” Unlike seasoned bosses, the protagonists of Piranhas are teenagers who chase the myths of consumerism – designer clothes, tables in trendy clubs, easy money – through the language of crime. Theirs is a rebellion that transforms into a tragic imitation of the power they wish to fight.

Giovannesi adopts a realistic and immersive style, following the boys with a shoulder-mounted camera that captures their energy, naivety, and frightening recklessness. The film does not judge, but observes with empathy the process of the corruption of innocence, showing how the universal desire for belonging and redemption can be diverted into a path of self-destruction. Awarded Best Screenplay in Berlin, it is a necessary work to understand the present.

Sworn Virgin

To escape a destiny of submission in an archaic and patriarchal society in the mountains of Albania, young Hana appeals to an ancient law, the Kanun. She swears to remain a virgin forever and becomes a man, Mark, obtaining the same rights and freedoms as other men. Years later, Mark moves to Italy to live with his sister and there, in a completely different world, begins a difficult and painful journey to rediscover her body and her repressed femininity.

Laura Bispuri’s debut feature is an intense and delicate film that explores with great sensitivity the themes of gender identity, memory, and freedom. The story of the Albanian “sworn virgins” becomes a universal metaphor for the construction of identity and the possibility of reinventing oneself. The film constantly moves between two timelines and two places: the past in the rugged Albanian mountains and the present in a modern Italian city, reflecting the protagonist’s inner conflict.

Alba Rohrwacher gives an extraordinary performance, all played on subtraction and physicality. Her rigid and awkward body, her masculine gestures, and her lost gaze tell, better than any dialogue, the prison in which she has locked herself. Bispuri’s direction is intimate and sensory, attentive to the details and small epiphanies that mark Hana/Mark’s journey towards reclaiming herself.

The Eight Mountains

Pietro is a city boy, Bruno is the last child of a forgotten mountain village. Their summers spent at the foot of Monte Rosa give rise to a deep and indissoluble friendship. But while Pietro will travel the world, Bruno will remain faithful to his mountain. Their lives will take different paths, but an invisible bond will always bring them back there, to that place that was the cradle of their friendship and the reflection of their souls.

Based on the novel by Paolo Cognetti, the film by Belgian directors Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch is a poignant and majestic meditation on friendship, the relationship between father and son, and our place in the world. Awarded the Jury Prize at Cannes, The Eight Mountains is a work of universal scope, which uses the mountain as a metaphor for life: there are those who, like Pietro, need to explore the eight mountains of the world, and those who, like Bruno, are content to reach the summit of the highest one, their Sumeru.

The direction captures the imposing beauty and harshness of nature with an almost square format (4:3) that enhances the verticality of the mountains. Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli, in perfect harmony, bring to life a male friendship told with a rare delicacy and depth. It is a film that moves and makes you think, an intimate epic that reminds us of the importance of the roots and bonds that define us.