Cinema of Italy

The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the French Lumière brothers, who made the first public screening of a film on 28 December 1895, an event considered the birth of cinema, began motion picture exhibitions.[7][8] The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII on 26 February 1896 in the short film Sua Santità papa Leone XIII ("His Holiness Pope Leo XIII").[19] He then became the official photographer of the House of Savoy,[20] the Italian ruling dynasty from 1861 to 1946. In this role he filmed the first Italian film, Sua Maestà il Re Umberto e Sua Maestà la Regina Margherita a passeggio per il parco a Monza ("His Majesty the King Umberto and His Majesty the Queen Margherita strolling through the Monza Park"), believed to have been lost until it was rediscovered by the Cineteca Nazionale in 1979.[21]

The Lumière brothers commenced public screenings in Italy in 1896 starting in March, in Rome and Milan; in April in Naples, Salerno and Bari; in June in Livorno; in August in Bergamo, Bologna and Ravenna; in October in Ancona;[22] and in December in Turin, Pescara and Reggio Calabria.[23] Not long before, in 1895, Filoteo Alberini patented his "kinetograph", a shooting and projecting device not unlike that of the Lumières brothers.[10][24]

Italian Lumière trainees produced short films documenting everyday life and comic strips in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Before long, other pioneers made their way. Italo Pacchioni, Arturo Ambrosio, Giovanni Vitrotti and Roberto Omegna were also active. The success of the short films were immediate. The cinema fascinated with its ability to show distant geographic realities with unprecedented precision and, vice versa, to immortalize everyday moments. Sporting events, local events, intense road traffic, the arrival of a train, visits by famous people, but also natural disasters and calamities are filmed.

Titles of the time include, Arrivo del treno alla Stazione di Milano ("Arrival of the train at Milan station") (1896), La battaglia di neve ("The snow battle") (1896), la gabbia dei matti ("The madmen's cage") (1896), Ballo in famiglia ("Family dance") (1896), Il finto storpio al Castello Sforzesco ("The fake cripple at the Castello Sforzesco") (1896) and La Fiera di Porta Genova ("The fair of Porta Genova") (1898), all shot by Italo Pacchioni, who was also the inventor of a camera and projector, inspired by the cinematograph of Lumière brothers, kept at the Cineteca Italiana in Milan.[25]

If the interest of the masses were enthusiastic, the technological novelty would likely be snubbed, at least at the beginning, by intellectuals and the press.[26] Despite initial doubt, in just two years, cinema climbs the hierarchy of society, intriguing the wealthier classes. On 28 January 1897, prince Victor Emmanuel and princess Elena of Montenegro attended a screening organized by Vittorio Calcina, in a room of the Pitti Palace in Florence.[27] Interested in experimenting with the new medium, they were filmed in S.A.R. il Principe di Napoli e la Principessa Elena visitano il battistero di S. Giovanni a Firenze ("Their real heights the Prince of Naples and Princess Elena visit the baptistery of Saint John in Florence") and on the day of their wedding in Dimostrazione popolare alle LL. AA. i Principi sposi (al Pantheon – Roma) ("Popular demonstration at the their heights the princes spouses (at the Pantheon – Rome)").[28][29]

The logo of Cines, with the Capitoline Wolf in the centre

In the early years of the 20th century, the phenomenon of itinerant cinemas developed throughout Italy, providing literacy of the visual medium.[30] This innovative form of spectacle ran out, in a short time, a number of optical attractions such as magic lanterns, cineographers, stereoscopes, panoramas and dioramas that had fueled the European imagination and favored the circulation of a common market for images.[31] The nascent Italian cinema, therefore, is still linked to the traditional shows of the commedia dell'arte or to those typical of circus folklore. Public screenings take place in the streets, in cafes or in variety theaters in the presence of a swindler who has the task of promoting and enriching the story.[32]

Between 1903 and 1909 the itinerant cinema Italian film was queifing, until then considered as a freak phenomenon, took on consistency assuming the characteristics of an authentic industry, led by three major organizations: Cines, based in Rome; and the Turin-based companies Ambrosio Film and Itala Film.[23] Other companies soon followed in Milan and Naples, and these early companies quickly attained a respectable production quality and were able to market their products both within Italy and abroad. Early Italian films typically consisted of adaptations of books or stage plays, such as Mario Caserini's Otello (1906) and Arturo Ambrosio's 1908 adaptation of the novel, The Last Days of Pompeii. Also popular during this period were films about historical figures, such as Caserini's Beatrice Cenci (1909) and Ugo Falena's Lucrezia Borgia (1910).

The discovery of the spectacular potential of the cinematographic medium favored the development of a cinema with great ambitions, capable of incorporating all the cultural and historical suggestions of the country.[23] Education is an inexhaustible source of ideas, ideas that can be easily assimilated not only by a cultured public but also by the masses.[23] Dozens of characters met in the textbooks make their entrance on the big screen such as the Count of Monte Cristo, Giordano Bruno, Judith beheading Holofernes, Francesca da Rimini, Lorenzino de' Medici, Rigoletto, Count Ugolino and others.[23] From an iconographic point of view, the main references are the great Renaissance and neoclassical artists, as well as symbolists and popular illustrations.[33]

Quo Vadis (1913), regarded as one of the first blockbusters in the history of cinema.

Cabiria (1914), the first epic film ever made

In the 1910s, the Italian film industry developed rapidly.[34] In 1912, the year of the greatest expansion, 569 films were produced in Turin, 420 in Rome and 120 in Milan.[35] L'Inferno, produced by Milano Films in 1911, was the first Italian feature film ever made.[36] Popular early Italian actors included Emilio Ghione, Alberto Collo, Bartolomeo Pagano, Amleto Novelli, Lyda Borelli, Ida Carloni Talli, Lidia Quaranta and Maria Jacobini.[10]

Enrico Guazzone's 1913 film Quo Vadis was one of the first blockbusters in the history of cinema, using thousands of extras and a lavish set design.[37] Giovanni Pastrone's 1914 film Cabiria was an even larger production, requiring two years and a record budget to produce, it was the first epic film ever made and it is considered the most famous Italian silent film.[34][38] It was also the first film in history to be shown in the White House.[39][40][41] Nino Martoglio's Lost in Darkness, also produced in 1914, documented life in the slums of Naples, and is considered a precursor to the Neorealist movement of the 1940s and 1950s.[10]

Between 1913 and 1920 there was the rise, development and decline of the phenomenon of cinematographic stardom, born with the release of Ma l'amor mio non-muore (1913), by Mario Caserini. The film had great success with the public and encoded the setting and aesthetics of female stardom. Within just a few years, Eleonora Duse, Pina Menichelli, Rina De Liguoro, Leda Gys, Hesperia, Vittoria Lepanto, Mary Cleo Tarlarini and Italia Almirante Manzini established themselves. Films such as Fior di male (1914), by Carmine Gallone, Il fuoco (1915), by Giovanni Pastrone, Rapsodia satanica (1917), by Nino Oxilia and Cenere (1917), by Febo Mari, changed the national costume, imposing canons of beauty, role models and objects of desire.[42] These models, strongly stylized according to the cultural and artistic trends of the time, moved away from naturalism in favor of melodramatic acting, pictorial gesture and theatrical pose; all favored by the incessant use of close-up which focuses the attention on the expressiveness of the actress.[43]

Thaïs by Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1917)

Between 1911 and 1919, Italy was home to the first avant-garde movement in cinema, inspired by the country's Futurism, an artistic and social movement. Futurism emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. Its key figures were the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo. It glorified modernity and aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past.[44]

The 1916 Manifesto of Futuristic Cinematography was signed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Armando Ginna, Bruno Corra, Giacomo Balla and others. To the Futurists, cinema was an ideal art form, being a fresh medium, and able to be manipulated by speed, special effects and editing. Most of the futuristic-themed films of this period have been lost, but critics cite Thaïs (1917) by Anton Giulio Bragaglia as one of the most influential, serving as the main inspiration for German Expressionist cinema in the following decade.

The Italian film industry struggled against rising foreign competition in the years following World War I.[10] Several major studios, among them Cines and Ambrosio, formed the Unione Cinematografica Italiana to coordinate a national strategy for film production. This effort was largely unsuccessful, however, due to a wide disconnect between production and exhibition (some movies weren't released until several years after they were produced).[45]

Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste

With the end of World War I, Italian cinema went through a period of crisis due to many factors: production disorganization, increased costs, technological backwardness, loss of foreign markets and inability to cope with international competition, in particular with that of Hollywood.[46] The main causes include the lack of a generational change with a production still dominated by filmmakers and producers of literary training, unable to face the challenges of modernity. The first half of the 1920s marked a sharp decrease in production; from 350 films produced in 1921 to 60 in 1924.[47]

The revival of Italian cinema took place at the end of the decade with the production of larger-scale films. Among the notable Italian films of the late silent era were Mario Camerini's Rotaie (1929) and Alessandro Blasetti's Sun (1929).[10] While not comparable to the best results of international cinema of the period, the works of Camerini and Blasetti testify to a generational transition between Italian directors and intellectuals, and above all an emancipation from literary models and an approach to the tastes of the public.

In 1930, Gennaro Righelli directed the first Italian talking picture, The Song of Love. This was followed by Blasetti's Mother Earth (1930) and Resurrection (1931), and Camerini's Figaro and His Great Day (1931). The advent of talkies led to stricter censorship by the Fascist government.[10] Historical films such as Blasetti's 1860 (1934) and Carmine Gallone's Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal (1937) were also popular during this period.[10]

Italian-born director Frank Capra received three Academy Awards for Best Director for the films It Happened One Night (the first Big Five winner at the Academy Awards), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can't Take It with You.

Entrance to the Cinecittà in Rome, the largest film studio in Europe.[48]

During the 1930s, light comedies known as telefoni bianchi ("white telephones") were predominant in Italian cinema.[10] These films, which featured lavish set designs, promoted conservative values and respect for authority, and thus typically avoided the scrutiny of government censors. Important examples of telefoni bianchi include Guido Brignone's Paradiso (1932), Carlo Bragaglia's O la borsa o la vita (1933), and Righelli's Together in the Dark (1935).

In 1934, the Italian government created the General Directorate for Cinema (Direzione Generale per le Cinematografia), and appointed Luigi Freddi its director. With the approval of Benito Mussolini, this directorate called for the establishment of a town southeast of Rome devoted exclusively to cinema, dubbed the Cinecittà ("Cinema City").

Completed in 1937, the Cinecittà provided everything necessary for filmmaking: theaters, technical services, and even a cinematography school, the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, for younger apprentices. The Cinecittà studios were Europe's most advanced production facilities, and greatly boosted the technical quality of Italian films.[10] Many films are still shot entirely in Cinecittà. Benito Mussolini founded Cinecittà studio also for the production of Fascist propaganda until World War II.[49]

During this period, Mussolini's son, Vittorio, created a national production company and organized the work of noted authors, directors and actors (including even some political opponents), thereby creating an interesting communication network among them, which produced several noted friendships and stimulated cultural interaction.

Vittorio De Sica, a leading figure in the neorealist movement and one of the world's most acclaimed and influential filmmakers of all time.[50]

By the end of World War II, the Italian "neorealist" movement had begun to take shape. Neorealist films typically dealt with the working class (in contrast to the Telefoni Bianchi), and were shot on location. Many neorealist films, but not all, used non-professional actors. Though the term "neorealism" was used for the first time to describe Luchino Visconti’s 1943 film, Ossessione, there were several important precursors to the movement, most notably Camerini's What Scoundrels Men Are! (1932), which was the first Italian film shot entirely on location, and Blasetti's 1942 film, Four Steps in the Clouds.[51]

Roberto Rossellini and Mario Monicelli winning the Golden Lion for General Della Rovere and The Great War respectively.

Ossessione angered Fascist officials. Upon viewing the film, Vittorio Mussolini is reported to have shouted, "This is not Italy!" before walking out of the theater.[52] The film was subsequently banned in the Fascist-controlled parts of Italy. While neorealism exploded after the war, and was incredibly influential at the international level, neorealist films made up only a small percentage of Italian films produced during this period, as postwar Italian moviegoers preferred escapist comedies starring actors such as Totò and Alberto Sordi.[51]

Neorealist works such as Roberto Rossellini's trilogy Rome, Open City (1945), Paisà (1946), and Germany, Year Zero (1948), with professional actors such as Anna Magnani and a number of non-professional actors, attempted to describe the difficult economic and moral conditions of postwar Italy and the changes in public mentality in everyday life. Visconti's The Earth Trembles (1948) was shot on location in a Sicilian fishing village, and used local non-professional actors. Giuseppe De Santis, on other hand, used actors such as Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman in his 1949 film, Bitter Rice, which is set in the Po Valley during rice-harvesting season.

Poetry and cruelty of life were harmonically combined in the works that Vittorio De Sica wrote and directed together with screenwriter Cesare Zavattini: among them, Shoeshine (1946), The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Miracle in Milan (1951). The 1952 film Umberto D. showed a poor old man with his little dog, who must beg for alms against his dignity in the loneliness of the new society. This work is perhaps De Sica's masterpiece and one of the most important works in Italian cinema.[53] It was not a commercial success[53] and since then it has been shown on Italian television only a few times. Yet it is perhaps the most violent attack, in the apparent quietness of the action, against the rules of the new economy, the new mentality, the new values, and it embodies both a conservative and a progressive view.[53]

Although Umberto D. is considered the end of the neorealist period, later films such as Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954) and De Sica's 1960 film Two Women (for which Sophia Loren won the Oscar for Best Actress) are grouped with the genre. Director Pier Paolo Pasolini's first film, Accattone (1961), shows a strong neorealist influence.[51] Italian neorealist cinema influenced filmmakers around the world, and helped inspire other film movements, such as the French New Wave and the Polish Film School. The Neorealist period is often simply referred to as "The Golden Age" of Italian Cinema by critics, filmmakers, and scholars.

• 
  Ossessione (1943), by Luchino Visconti.
• 
  A still shot from Rome, Open City (1945), by Roberto Rossellini.
• 
  Bicycle Thieves (1948), by Vittorio De Sica, ranked among the best movies ever made and part of the canon of classic cinema.[54]
• 
  Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966) is often associated with Italian neorealism.[55]

Calligrafismo is in a sharp contrast to telefoni bianchi-American style comedies and is rather artistic, highly formalistic, expressive in complexity and deals mainly with contemporary literary material,[56] above all the pieces of Italian realism from authors like Corrado Alvaro, Ennio Flaiano, Emilio Cecchi, Francesco Pasinetti, Vitaliano Brancati, Mario Bonfantini and Umberto Barbaro.[57]

Massimo Girotti e Lucia Bosè in Story of a Love Affair by Michelangelo Antonioni (1950)

Starting from the mid-1950s, Italian cinema freed itself from neorealism by tackling purely existential topics, films with different styles and points of view, often more introspective than descriptive.[58] Thus we are witnessing a new flowering of filmmakers who contribute in a fundamental way to the development of the art.[58]

Michelangelo Antonioni is the first to establish himself, becoming a reference author for all contemporary cinema.[59] This charge of novelty is recognizable from the beginning as the director's first work, Story of a Love Affair (1950), marks an indelible break with the world of neorealism and the consequent birth of a modern cinema.[59] Antonioni investigated the world of the Italian bourgeoisie with a critical eye, left out of the post-war cinematic lens. In doing so, works of psychological research such as I Vinti (1952), The Lady Without Camelias (1953) and Le Amiche (1955), free adaptation of the short story Tra donne sole by Cesare Pavese, came to light. In 1957, he staged the unusual proletarian drama Il Grido, with which he obtained critical acclaim.

In 1955, the David di Donatello was established, with its Best Picture category being awarded for the first time only in 1970.

Marcello Mastroianni in 8½ (1963) by Federico Fellini, considered to be one of the greatest films of all time.[60]

Federico Fellini is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. Fellini won the Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita, was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and won four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film, the most for any director in the history of the academy. He received an honorary award for Lifetime Achievement at the 65th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. His other well-known films include La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), Juliet of the Spirits (1967), Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), Amarcord (1973), and Fellini's Casanova (1976).

Personal and highly idiosyncratic visions of society, Fellini's films are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy and desire. The adjectives "Fellinian" and "Felliniesque" are "synonymous with any kind of extravagant, fanciful, even baroque image in the cinema and in art in general".[61] La Dolce Vita contributed the term paparazzi to the English language, derived from Paparazzo, the photographer friend of journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni).[62]

Contemporary filmmakers such as Tim Burton,[63] Terry Gilliam,[64] Emir Kusturica,[65] and David Lynch[66] have cited Fellini's influence on their work.

It has been said that after Umberto D. nothing more could be added to neorealism. Possibly because of this, neorealism effectively ended with that film; subsequent works turned toward lighter atmospheres, perhaps more coherent with the improving conditions of the country, and this genre has been called pink neorealism. This trend allowed better-"equipped" actresses to become real celebrities, such as Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Silvana Pampanini, Lucia Bosé, Barbara Bouchet, Eleonora Rossi Drago, Silvana Mangano, Virna Lisi, Claudia Cardinale and Stefania Sandrelli. Soon pink neorealism, such as Pane, amore e fantasia (1953) with Vittorio De Sica and Gina Lollobrigida, was replaced by the Commedia all'italiana, a unique genre that, born on an ideally humouristic line, talked instead very seriously about important social themes.

A scene from Big Deal on Madonna Street by Mario Monicelli (1958)

Italian Comedy is generally considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's I soliti Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958) and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's Divorzio all'Italiana (Divorce Italian Style, 1961). For a long time this definition was used with a derogatory intention.

Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Alberto Sordi, Claudia Cardinale, Monica Vitti and Nino Manfredi were among the stars of these movies, that described the years of the economical reprise and investigated Italian customs, a sort of self-ethnological research.

In 1961 Dino Risi directed Una vita difficile (A Difficult Life), then Il sorpasso (The Easy Life), now a cult-movie, followed by: I Mostri (The Monsters, also known as 15 From Rome), In nome del Popolo Italiano (In the Name of the Italian People) and Profumo di donna (Scent of a Woman). Monicelli's works include La grande guerra (The Great War), I compagni (Comrades, also known as The Organizer), L'Armata Brancaleone, Vogliamo i colonnelli (We Want the Colonels), Romanzo popolare (Popular Novel) and the Amici miei series.

Totò in his first movie Hands Off Me! (1937)

At this time, on the more commercial side of production, the phenomenon of Totò, a Neapolitan actor who is acclaimed as the major Italian comic, exploded. His films (often with Aldo Fabrizi, Peppino De Filippo and almost always with Mario Castellani) expressed a sort of neorealistic satire, in the means of a guitto (a "hammy" actor) as well as with the art of the great dramatic actor he also was.

A "film-machine" who produced dozens of titles per year, his repertoire was frequently repeated. His personal story (a prince born in the poorest rione (section of the city) of Naples), his unique twisted face, his special mimic expressions and his gestures created an inimitable personage and made him one of the most beloved Italians of the 1960s.

Some of his best-known films are Fifa e Arena, Totò al Giro d'Italia, Totò Sceicco, Guardie e ladri, Totò e le donne, Totò Tarzan, Totò terzo uomo, Totò a colori (one of the first Italian color movies, 1952, in Ferraniacolor), I soliti ignoti, Totò, Peppino e la malafemmina, La legge è legge. Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Hawks and the Sparrows and the episode "Che cosa sono le nuvole" from Capriccio all'italiana (the latter released after his death), showed his dramatic skills.

Gino Cervi and Fernandel in Don Camillo: Monsignor (1961)

A series of black-and-white films based on Don Camillo and Peppone characters created by the Italian writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi were made between 1952 and 1965. These were French-Italian coproductions, and starred Fernandel as the Italian priest Don Camillo and Gino Cervi as Giuseppe 'Peppone' Bottazzi, the Communist Mayor of their rural town. The titles are: The Little World of Don Camillo (1952), The Return of Don Camillo (1953), Don Camillo's Last Round (1955), Don Camillo: Monsignor (1961), and Don Camillo in Moscow (1965).

The movies were a huge commercial success in their native countries. In 1952, Little World of Don Camillo became the highest-grossing film in both Italy and France,[67] while The Return of Don Camillo was the second most popular film of 1953 at the Italian and French box office.[68]

Mario Camerini began filming the film Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi, but had to stop filming due to Fernandel's falling ill, which resulted in his untimely death. The film was then realized in 1972 with Gastone Moschin playing the role of Don Camillo and Lionel Stander as Peppone.

A new Don Camillo film, titled The World of Don Camillo, was also remade in 1983, an Italian production with Terence Hill directing and also starring as Don Camillo. Colin Blakely performed Peppone in one of his last film roles.

American film Ben-Hur (1959) was shot at the Cinecittà studios and on location around Rome during the "Hollywood on the Tiber" era.

In the late 1940s, Hollywood studios began to shift production abroad to Europe. Italy was, along with Britain, one of the major destinations for American film companies. Shooting at Cinecittà, large-budget films such as Quo Vadis (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), Ben-Hur (1959), and Cleopatra (1963) were made in English with international casts and sometimes, but not always, Italian settings or themes.

The heyday of what was dubbed '"Hollywood on the Tiber" was between 1950 and 1970, during which time many of the most famous names in world cinema made films in Italy. The phrase "Hollywood on Tiber", a reference to the river that runs through Rome, was coined in 1950 by Time magazine during the making of Quo Vadis.[69]

With the release of 1958's Hercules, starring American bodybuilder Steve Reeves, the Italian film industry gained entree to the American film market. These films, many with mythological or Bible themes, were low-budget costume/adventure dramas, and had immediate appeal with both European and American audiences. Besides the many films starring a variety of muscle men as Hercules, heroes such as Samson and Italian fictional hero Maciste were common. Sometimes dismissed as low-quality escapist fare, the Peplums allowed newer directors such as Sergio Leone and Mario Bava a means of breaking into the film industry. Some, such as Mario Bava's Hercules in the Haunted World (Italian: Ercole Al Centro Della Terra) are considered seminal works in their own right. As the genre matured, budgets sometimes increased, as evidenced in 1962's I sette gladiatori (The Seven Gladiators in 1964 US release), a wide-screen epic with impressive sets and matte-painting work. Most Peplum films were in color, whereas previous Italian efforts had often been black and white.

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  Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano in a pause during the shootings of Ulysses (1954)
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  Duel of the Titans (1961)
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  My Son, the Hero (1962)

Musicarello (pl. musicarelli) is a film subgenre which emerged in Italy and which is characterised by the presence in main roles of young singers, already famous among their peers, supported by comic actors. The genre began in the late 1950s, and had its peak of production in the 1960s.[70] The film which started the genre is considered to be I ragazzi del Juke-Box by Lucio Fulci.[71] At the heart of the musicarello is a hit song, or a song that the producers hoped would become a hit, that usually shares its title with the film itself and sometimes has lyrics depicting a part of the plot.[72]

Sergio Leone is credited as the inventor of the Spaghetti Western genre.

On the heels of the Peplum craze, a related genre, the Spaghetti Western arose and was popular both in Italy and elsewhere. These films differed from traditional westerns by being filmed in Europe on limited budgets, but featured vivid cinematography.

The most popular Spaghetti Westerns were those of Sergio Leone, whose Dollars Trilogy (1964's A Fistful of Dollars, an unauthorized remake of the Japanese film Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa; 1965's For a Few Dollars More, an original sequel; and 1966's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a World-famous prequel), featuring Clint Eastwood as a character marketed as "the Man with No Name" and notorious scores by Ennio Morricone, came to define the genre along with Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Another popular Spaghetti Western film is Sergio Corbucci Django (1966), starring Franco Nero as the titular character, another Yojimbo plagiarism, produced to capitalize on the success of A Fistful of Dollars. The original Django was followed by both an authorized sequel (1987's Django Strikes Again) and an overwhelming number of unauthorized uses of the same character in other films.

• 
  Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name in For a Few Dollars More, part of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy.
• 
  Franco Nero as Django in the film of the same name.

Bud Spencer and Terence Hill in They Call Me Trinity.

Also considered Spaghetti Westerns is a film genre which combined traditional western ambiance with a Commedia all'italiana-type comedy; films including They Call Me Trinity and Trinity Is STILL My Name!, which featured Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, the stage names of Carlo Pedersoli and Mario Girotti.

Terence Hill and Bud Spencer made numerous films together.[73] Most of their early films were Spaghetti Westerns, beginning with God Forgives... I Don't! (1967), the first part of a trilogy, followed by Ace High (1968) and Boot Hill (1969), but they also starred in comedies such as ... All the Way, Boys! (1972) and Watch Out, We're Mad! (1974).

The next films shot by the couple of actors, almost all comedies, were Two Missionaries (1974), Crime Busters (1977), Odds and Evens (1978), I'm for the Hippopotamus (1979), Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure (1981), Go for It (1983), Double Trouble (1984), Miami Supercops (1985) and Troublemakers (1994).

Mario Bava

Dario Argento

During the 1960s and 70s, Italian filmmakers Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda, Antonio Margheriti and Dario Argento developed giallo horror films that become classics and influenced the genre in other countries. Representative films include: Black Sunday, Castle of Blood, Twitch of the Death Nerve, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red and Suspiria.

Cannibal films are a subgenre of horror films made predominantly by Italian filmmakers during the 1970s and 1980s. This subgenre is a collection of graphically violent movies that usually depict cannibalism by primitive, Stone Age natives deep within the Asian or South American rainforests.[74]

Due to the success of the James Bond film series the Italian film industry made large amounts of imitations and spoofs in the Eurospy genre from 1964 to 1967.

Following the 1960s boom of shockumentary "Mondo films" such as Gualtiero Jacopetti's Mondo Cane, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Italian cinema became internationally synonymous with violent horror films. These films were primarily produced for the video market and were credited with fueling the "video nasty" era in the United Kingdom.

Directors in this genre included Lucio Fulci, Joe D'Amato, Umberto Lenzi and Ruggero Deodato. Some of their films faced legal challenges in the United Kingdom; after the Video Recordings Act of 1984, it became a legal offense to sell a copy of such films as Cannibal Holocaust and SS Experiment Camp. Italian films of this period are usually grouped together as exploitation films.

Several countries charged Italian studios with exceeding the boundaries of acceptability with their late-1970s Nazi exploitation films, inspired by American movies such as Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. The Italian works included the notorious but comparatively tame SS Experiment Camp and the far more graphic Last Orgy of the Third Reich (Italian: L'ultima orgia del III Reich). These films showed, in great detail, sexual crimes against prisoners at concentration camps. These films may still be banned in the United Kingdom and other countries.

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  Barbara Steele in Black Sunday (1960)
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  A scene from Blood and Black Lace (1964)
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  Giuliana Calandra in a famous scene from Deep Red (1975)
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  Suzy (Jessica Harper) and Sara (Stefania Casini) in Suspiria, the first film in Dario Argento's "The Three Mothers" trilogy

Gastone Moschin in Caliber 9 (1972)

Poliziotteschi (Italian pronunciation: [polittsjotˈteski]; plural of poliziottesco) films constitute a subgenre of crime and action film that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as polizieschi all'italiana, Euro-crime, Italo-crime, spaghetti crime films', or simply Italian crime films.

Influenced by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films,[75] poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy and increasing Italian crime rates.

The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases, vigilantism, heists, gunfights, and corruption up to the highest levels. The protagonists were generally tough working class loners, willing to act outside a corrupt or overly bureaucratic system.[76] Most notable international actors acted in this genre of films such Alain Delon, Henry Silva, Fred Williamson, Charles Bronson, Tomas Milian and others international stars.

Franco and Ciccio were a comedy duo formed by Italian actors Franco Franchi (1928–1992) and Ciccio Ingrassia (1922–2003), particularly popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Together, they appeared in 116 films, usually as the main characters, and occasionally as supporting characters in movies featuring well-known actors like Totò, Domenico Modugno, Vittorio Gassman, Buster Keaton and Vincent Price.

Their collaboration began in 1954, and ended with Franchi's death in 1992. The two made their debuts in 1960 with the film Appuntamento a Ischia. After, seeing them in this film Modugno who, wanted them with him in his film,[77][78] and remained active until 1984 when they shot their last film together, Kaos, although there were some interruptions in 1973 and from 1975 to 1980.[79]

Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren in A Special Day by Ettore Scola (1977)

In the 1970s the work done by the director Lina Wertmüller was influential, who together with the well-established actors Giancarlo Giannini and Mariangela Melato, gave life to successful films such as The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973) and Swept Away (1974). Two years later, with Seven Beauties (1976), she obtained four nominations for the Academy Awards, making her the first woman ever to receive a nomination for best director.[80]

The last protagonist of the great season of the comedy is the director Ettore Scola. Throughout the 1950s, he played the role of screenwriter, and then makes his directorial debut in 1964 with the film Let's Talk About Women. In 1974, he directed his best known film, We All Loved Each Other So Much, which traces 30 years of Italian history through the stories of three friends: the lawyer Gianni Perego (Vittorio Gassman), the porter Antonio (Nino Manfredi) and the intellectual Nicola (Stefano Satta Flores). Other films include, Down and Dirty (1976) starring Nino Manfredi, and A Special Day (1977) starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.[81]

The auteur cinema of the 1960s continues its path by analyzing distinct themes and problems. A new authorial vision is emancipated from the surreal and existential veins of Fellini and Antonioni which sees cinema as an ideal means of denouncing corruption and malfeasance,[82] both in the political system and in the industrial world. Thus was born the structure of the investigative film which, starting from the neorealist analysis of the facts, adding to them a concise critical judgment, with the manifest intent of shaking the consciences of public opinion. This typology deliberately touches upon burning issues, often targeting the established power, with the intent of reconstructing a historical truth that is often hidden or denied.[83]

Gian Maria Volonté and Florinda Bolkan in Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion by Elio Petri (1970)

One of Francesco Rosi's most famous films of denunciation is The Mattei Affair (1972), a rigorous documentary into the mysterious disappearance of Enrico Mattei, manager of Eni, a large Italian state group. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and became (together with the tight Illustrious Corpses (1976)) a true model for similar denunciation films produced both in Italy and abroad. Famous films of denunciation by Elio Petri are The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971), a corrosive denunciation of life in the factory (winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes) and Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970). The latter (accompanied by the incisive soundtrack by Ennio Morricone) is a dry psychoanalytic thriller centered on the aberrations of power, analyzed in a pathological key.[84] The film obtained a wide consensus, winning the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film the following year.

Arguments related to civilian cinema can be found in the work of Damiano Damiani, who with The Day of the Owl (1968) enjoyed considerable success. Other feature films include, Confessions of a Police Captain (1971), The Case Is Closed, Forget It (1971), How to Kill a Judge (1974) and I Am Afraid (1977). Also Pasquale Squitieri for the film Il prefetto di ferro (1977) and Giuliano Montaldo, who after some experiences as an actor, staged some historical and political films such as The Fifth Day of Peace (1970), Sacco & Vanzetti (1971) and Giordano Bruno (1973). Also Nanni Loy for the film In Prison Awaiting Trial (1971) starring Alberto Sordi.

During this time, commedia sexy all'italiana films, described by the film critics of the time as not artistic or "trash films", were very popular in Italy. Today they are widely re-evaluated and have become real cult movies. They also allowed the producers of Italian cinema to have enough revenue to produce successful artistic films. These comedy films were of little artistic value and reached their popularity by confronting Italian social taboos, most notably in the sexual sphere. Actors such as Lando Buzzanca, Lino Banfi, Renzo Montagnani, Alvaro Vitali, Gloria Guida, Barbara Bouchet and Edwige Fenech owe much of their popularity to these films.

Paolo Villaggio as Fantozzi

Also considered part of the trash genre are films which feature Ugo Fantozzi, a character invented by Paolo Villaggio for his TV sketches and newspaper short stories. Although Villaggio's movies tend to bridge trash comedy with a more elevated social satire; this character had a great impact on Italian society, to such a degree that the adjective fantozziano entered the lexicon.

Of the many films telling of Fantozzi's misadventures, the most notable and famous were Fantozzi and Il secondo tragico Fantozzi, but many other were produced. The other films were Fantozzi contro tutti, directed by Neri Parenti (1980), Fantozzi subisce ancora, directed by Neri Parenti (1983), Superfantozzi, directed by Neri Parenti (1986), Fantozzi va in pensione, directed by Neri Parenti (1988), Fantozzi alla riscossa, directed by Neri Parenti (1990), Fantozzi in paradiso, directed by Neri Parenti (1993), Fantozzi - Il ritorno, directed by Neri Parenti (1996) and Fantozzi 2000 - La clonazione, directed by Domenico Saverni (1999).

Mario Trevi

The sceneggiata (pl. sceneggiate) or sceneggiata napoletana is a form of musical drama typical of Naples. Beginning as a form of musical theatre after World War I, it was also adapted for cinema; sceneggiata films became especially popular in the 1970s, and contributed to the genre becoming more widely known outside Naples.[85] The most famous actors who played dramas were Mario Merola, Mario Trevi, and Nino D'Angelo.[86]

Ennio Morricone has composed over 500 scores for cinema and television since 1946.[87]

The 1980s was a period of decline for Italian filmmaking. In 1985, only 80 films were produced (the least since the postwar period)[88] and the total number of audience decreased from 525 million in 1970, to 123 million.[89] It is a physiological process that invests, in the same period as other countries, with a great cinematographic tradition such as Japan, United Kingdom and France. The era of producers ended; Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis work abroad, Goffredo Lombardo and Franco Cristaldi were no longer key figures. The crisis affects the Italian genre cinema above all, which, by virtue of the success of commercial television, is deprived of the vast majority of its audience.[90] As a result, movie theaters began showing mainly Hollywood films, which steadily took over, while many other movie theaters closed.

Among the major artistic films of this era were La città delle donne, E la nave va, Ginger and Fred by Fellini, L'albero degli zoccoli by Ermanno Olmi (winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival), La notte di San Lorenzo by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Antonioni's Identificazione di una donna, and Bianca and La messa è finita by Nanni Moretti. Although not entirely Italian, Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, winner of 9 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, and Once Upon a Time in America of Sergio Leone came out of this period also.

Non ci resta che piangere, directed by and starring both Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi, is a cult movie in Italy.

Carlo Verdone, actor, screenwriter and film director, is best known for his comedic roles in Italian classics, which he also wrote and directed. His career was jumpstarted by his first three successes, Un sacco bello (1980), Bianco, rosso e Verdone (1981) and Borotalco (1982). Since the 1990s, he has been introducing more serious subjects in his work, linked to the excesses of society and the individual's hardships in confronting it; some examples are Maledetto il giorno che t'ho incontrata (1992), Il mio miglior nemico (2006) and Io, loro e Lara (2010).

Francesco Nuti began his professional career as an actor in the late 1970s, when he formed the cabaret group Giancattivi together with Alessandro Benvenuti and Athina Cenci. The group took part in the TV shows Black Out and Non Stop for RAI TV, and shot their first feature film, West of Paperino (1981), written and directed by Benvenuti. The following year Nuti abandoned the trio and began a solo career with three movies directed by Maurizio Ponzi: What a Ghostly Silence There Is Tonight (1982), The Pool Hustlers (1982) and Son contento (1983). Starting in 1985, he began to direct his movies, scoring an immediate success with the films Casablanca, Casablanca and All the Fault of Paradise (1985), Stregati (1987), Caruso Pascoski, Son of a Pole (1988), Willy Signori e vengo da lontano (1990) and Women in Skirts (1991). The 1990s were however a period of decline for the Tuscan director, with poorly successful movies such as OcchioPinocchio (1994), Mr. Fifteen Balls (1998), Io amo Andrea (2000) and Caruso, Zero for Conduct (2001).

The cinepanettoni (singular: cinepanettone) are a series of farcical comedy films, one or two of which are scheduled for release annually in Italy during the Christmas period. The films were originally produced by Aurelio De Laurentiis' Filmauro studio.[91] These films are usually focused on the holidays of stereotypical Italians: bungling, wealthy and presumptuous members of the middle class who visit famous, glamorous or exotic places.

Roberto Benigni and Nicoletta Braschi

The economic crisis that emerged in the 1980s began to ease over the next decade.[92] Nonetheless, the 1992–93 and 1993–94 seasons marked an all-time low in the number of films made, in the national market share (15 percent), in the total number of viewers (under 90 million per year) and in the number of cinemas.[93] The effect of this industrial contraction sanctions the total disappearance of Italian genre cinema in the middle of the decade, as it was no longer suitable to compete with the contemporary big Hollywood blockbusters (mainly due to the enormous budget differences available), with its directors and actors who therefore almost entirely switch to television film.

A new generation of directors has helped return Italian cinema to a healthy level since the end of the 1980s. Probably the most noted film of the period is Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, for which Giuseppe Tornatore won a 1989 Oscar (awarded in 1990) for Best Foreign Language Film. This award was followed when Gabriele Salvatores's Mediterraneo won the same prize for 1991.

Il Postino: The Postman (1994), directed by the British Michael Radford and starring Massimo Troisi, received five nominations at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Troisi, and won for Best Original Score. Another exploit was in 1998 when Roberto Benigni won three Oscars for his movie Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella) (Best Actor for Benigni himself, Best Foreign Film, Best Music). The film was also nominated for Best Picture.

Leonardo Pieraccioni made his directorial debut with The Graduates (1995).[94] In 1996 he directed his breakthrough film The Cyclone, which grossed Lire 75 billion at the box office.[95][96]

With the new millennium, the Italian film industry regained stability and critical recognition. In 1995, 93 films were produced,[97] while in 2005, 274 films were made.[98] In 2006, the national market share reached 31 percent.[99] In 2001, Nanni Moretti's film The Son's Room (La stanza del figlio) received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Other noteworthy recent Italian films include: Jona che visse nella balena directed by Roberto Faenza, Il grande cocomero by Francesca Archibugi, The Profession of Arms (Il mestiere delle armi) by Olmi, L'ora di religione by Marco Bellocchio, Il ladro di bambini, Lamerica, The Keys to the House (Le chiavi di casa) by Gianni Amelio, I'm Not Scared (Io non-ho paura) by Gabriele Salvatores, Le Fate Ignoranti, Facing Windows (La finestra di fronte) by Ferzan Özpetek, Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte) by Marco Bellocchio, The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventù) by Marco Tullio Giordana, The Beast in the Heart (La bestia nel cuore) by Cristina Comencini. In 2008 Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo, a biographical film based on the life of Giulio Andreotti, won the Jury prize and Gomorra, a crime drama film, directed by Matteo Garrone won the Gran Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

Perfect Strangers (2016) by Paolo Genovese was included in the Guinness World Records as the most remade film in cinema history, with a total of 18 remakes.[100]

Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

The two highest-grossing Italian films in Italy have both been directed by Gennaro Nunziante and starred Checco Zalone: Sole a catinelle (2013) with €51.8 million, and Quo Vado? (2016) with €65.3 million.[101][102]

They Call Me Jeeg, a 2016 critically acclaimed superhero film directed by Gabriele Mainetti and starring Claudio Santamaria, won many awards, such as eight David di Donatello, two Nastro d'Argento, and a Globo d'oro.

Gianfranco Rosi's documentary film Fire at Sea (2016) won the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. They Call Me Jeeg and Fire at Sea were also selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, but they were not nominated.[103]

Other successful 2010s Italian films include: Vincere and The Traitor by Marco Bellocchio, The First Beautiful Thing (La prima cosa bella), Human Capital (Il capitale umano) and Like Crazy (La pazza gioia) by Paolo Virzì, We Have a Pope (Habemus Papam) and Mia Madre by Nanni Moretti, Caesar Must Die (Cesare deve morire) by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Don't Be Bad (Non essere cattivo) by Claudio Caligari, Romanzo Criminale by Michele Placido (that spawned a TV series, Romanzo criminale - La serie), Youth (La giovinezza) by Paolo Sorrentino, Suburra by Stefano Sollima, Perfect Strangers (Perfetti sconosciuti) by Paolo Genovese, Mediterranea and A Ciambra by Jonas Carpignano, Italian Race (Veloce come il vento) and The First King: Birth of an Empire (Il primo re) by Matteo Rovere, and Tale of Tales (Il racconto dei racconti), Dogman and Pinocchio by Matteo Garrone.

Call Me by Your Name (2017), the final installment in Luca Guadagnino's thematic Desire trilogy, following I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015), received widespread acclaim and numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the nomination for Best Picture in 2018.

Perfect Strangers by Paolo Genovese was included in the Guinness World Records as it became the most remade film in cinema history, with a total of 18 versions of the film.[100]

Successful 2020s Italian films include: The Life Ahead by Edoardo Ponti, Hidden Away by Giorgio Diritti, Bad Tales by Damiano and Fabio D'Innocenzo, The Predators by Pietro Castellitto, Padrenostro by Claudio Noce, Notturno by Gianfranco Rosi, The King of Laughter by Mario Martone, A Chiara by Jonas Carpignano, Freaks Out by Gabriele Mainetti and The Hand of God by Paolo Sorrentino.