The best Italian films of all time
The top 3 according to 9 votes from people: La dolce vita · 8½ · Bicycle Thieves. (Updated Dec 31, 2025.)
The films that most often top critics' rankings (Il Sorpasso, Movieplayer.it, ComingSoon): neorealism, commedia all'italiana, Fellini, Leone and the big recent successes.
Automatically translated (original in Italiano). See the original
Top 25
-
1
La dolce vita
Federico Fellini, 1960. Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg and the Trevi Fountain; Palme d'Or at Cannes.
-
2
8½
Federico Fellini, 1963. Marcello Mastroianni as a director in creative crisis; Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
-
3
Bicycle Thieves
Vittorio De Sica, 1948. A father and son search Rome's streets for a stolen bicycle; the emblem of neorealism.
-
4
The Leopard
Luchino Visconti, 1963. Burt Lancaster, the ball and the end of the Sicilian aristocracy; Palme d'Or.
-
5
The Easy Life
Dino Risi, 1962. Gassman and Trintignant in a Lancia Aurelia on the coast road over the August holiday.
-
6
Fantozzi
Luciano Salce, 1975. Paolo Villaggio as Italy's unluckiest accountant.
-
7
Ossessione
Luchino Visconti, 1943. Visconti's debut, from James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice.
-
8
Nights of Cabiria
Federico Fellini, 1957. Giulietta Masina as a naive prostitute in Rome; Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
-
9
Once Upon a Time in the West
Sergio Leone, 1968. Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson and Ennio Morricone's harmonica.
-
10
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Sergio Leone, 1966. Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach in cinema's most famous three-way duel.
-
11
Rome, Open City
Roberto Rossellini, 1945. Anna Magnani in occupied Rome; the film that launched neorealism.
-
12
Once Upon a Time in America
Sergio Leone, 1984. Robert De Niro and half a century of Jewish gangsters in New York.
-
13
Cinema Paradiso
Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988. Totò, Alfredo and a Sicilian village cinema; Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
-
14
Life Is Beautiful
Roberto Benigni, 1997. A father turns a concentration camp into a game for his son; three Oscars.
-
15
The Battle of Algiers
Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966. The Algerian war of independence shot like a documentary; Golden Lion.
-
16
L'avventura
Michelangelo Antonioni, 1960. A woman disappears on an Aeolian island and is never found.
-
17
Big Deal on Madonna Street
Mario Monicelli, 1958. Gassman, Mastroianni and Totò in a botched heist; the birth of commedia all'italiana.
-
18
Umberto D.
Vittorio De Sica, 1952. A pensioner and his dog in post-war Rome.
-
19
Rocco and His Brothers
Luchino Visconti, 1960. Alain Delon and a family from Basilicata who move to Milan.
-
20
The Great War
Mario Monicelli, 1959. Alberto Sordi and Vittorio Gassman as two shirkers in World War I; Golden Lion.
-
21
Amarcord
Federico Fellini, 1973. Memories of Rimini in the 1930s; Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
-
22
The Great Beauty
Paolo Sorrentino, 2013. Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella in Rome's high society; Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
-
23
My Friends
Mario Monicelli, 1975. The pranks of five friends from Florence; the 'supercazzola' entered the dictionary.
-
24
The Conformist
Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970. Jean-Louis Trintignant as a fascist official, shot by Vittorio Storaro.
-
25
La strada
Federico Fellini, 1954. Gelsomina and Zampanò on the roads of Italy; the first Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Candidates
They don't make it into the top 25… yet. Vote for them to move them up.
-
26
There's Still Tomorrow
Paola Cortellesi, 2023. A woman in Rome in 1946; Italy's most-watched film of the season with over 5 million viewers.
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
Is something missing?
Comments (3)
8½ primo, Fellini è Fellini. Ma Ladri di biciclette mi commuove sempre di più.
Fantozzi in questa lista mi fa sorridere, ma ci sta, è parte della nostra cultura.
C'è ancora domani già qui è meritatissimo, la Cortellesi ha fatto un capolavoro.