Italian
see all genres ›One of the great centers of film production since cinema's earliest days, Italy has always juggled artistic prestige and the ever-shifting genre demands of the marketplace. Over the decades, Italy has exported trends in historical spectacle, neo-realism, sexploitation and violent shock value while also giving us the unalloyed genius of Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci and many more (including Mario Bava and a handful other remarkable Italian filmmakers that rarely get mentioned in the same company as the above but are certainly every bit as worthy).
Watch Italian Films
Genres / International / European / Italian
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Black Sabbath
One of the great horror anthology films and Mario Bava's personal favorite of his works, BLACK SABBATH solidified the director's reputation as Europe's maestro of the macabre. In THE TELEPHONE, a woman is haunted by menacing phone calls from a former lover. THE WURDULAK stars Boris Karloff as a...Watch Movie
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A Bay of Blood
One of the most influential horror films of all time, Mario Bava's A BAY OF BLOOD (aka TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE) is the spurting artery from which all future slasher films would flow. When crippled Countess Federica is murdered at her isolated mansion, a gruesome battle ensues to secure the...Watch Movie
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Nostalghia
NOSTALGHIA is Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding late masterpiece, a darkly poetic vision of exile. It was the first of his features to be made outside of Russia, the home to which he would never return. Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word "nostalghia" conveys "the love for your homeland and...Watch Movie
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Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film at the 1964 Academy Awards®, YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW is a sparklingly original comedy that casts Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren in three different stories throughout Italy. In Naples, they are poor but resourceful, selling...Watch Movie
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Marriage Italian Style
One of the most famous and funniest Italian comedies of all time, MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE received nominations for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actress for Sophia Loren at the Academy Awards®. Marcello Mastroianni co-stars as the irrepressibly carnal businessman...Watch Movie
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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
An American writer (Tony Musante) traveling in Rome is the only witness to an attempted murder by a sinister man in a raincoat and black leather gloves, though he is powerless to do anything to stop him. With a feeling that something is not quite right about the scene he has...Watch Movie
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The Playgirls and the Vampire
After skipping out on an unpaid hotel bill, a busload of curvaceous showgirls is forced off the road by a thunderstorm. They rely on the hospitality of a nearby castle, where reclusive Count Kernassy nearly orders them away until he sees Vera, a leggy dancer who is a dead...Watch Movie
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Black Sunday
In one of the most auspicious directorial debuts in movie history, Mario Bava bridged the gap between the gothic horror picture and the European art film with BLACK SUNDAY (aka LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO or THE MASK OF SATAN). Made in 1960 and now considered a cult classic, it continues to...Watch Movie
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Blood and Black Lace
An unscrupulous business operating under the guise of a top fashion house becomes a murder scene after someone is pushed to the edge. The saga begins when a beautiful model is brutally murdered and her boyfriend is suspected of the crime. But is he guilty or is someone waiting...Watch Movie
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Sunflower
An Academy Award® nominee for Best Score (Henry Mancini), SUNFLOWER is a grandly emotional melodrama featuring a stunning performance by Sophia Loren. In another of the actress's great collaborations with director Vittorio De Sica (THE BICYCLE THIEF), Loren plays Giovanna, a steel-willed Italian...Watch Movie
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Love and Anarchy
An epic tragicomedy from director Lina Wertmuller, LOVE AND ANARCHY plumbs the depths of fascist Italy from the perspective of a simple farm boy sent to kill Mussolini. Giancarlo Giannini won the best acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his achingly sensitive...Watch Movie
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Five Dolls for an August Moon
FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON is Mario Bava's deliriously mod spin on an Agatha Christie-style whodunit. Bava was so closely associated with the horror genre that this twisting mystery was never released in the U.S. but it is deliciously entertaining all the same. A space age...Watch Movie
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The Strangers Gundown
With its horror-movie styling and ultra-violent nature, this perfect example of a Euro gothic western garnered an "X" rating on its initial Italian release. During the Civil War, three Confederate officers, leaders of a Confederate regiment, sell out to the Yankees, kill the...Watch Movie
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Ashanti
Michael Caine stars as Dr. David Linderby, half of a married U.N. medical team vaccinating native villages in West Africa. But when his skinny-dipping wife (supermodel Beverly Johnson) is abducted by a depraved Arab slave trader (two-time Academy Award® winner Peter Ustinov), there's no time for...Watch Movie
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Lisa and the Devil
Regarded as Mario Bava's most personal and unconventional film, LISA AND THE DEVIL is a diabolical thriller flavored with the dreadful imagery and tormenting logic of an endless nightmare. Elke Sommer stars as a tourist in Spain who, upon seeing the image of a bald, grinning...Watch Movie
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Intervals
INTERVALS is the Peter Greenaway’s self-described “attempt” at creating an entertaining, abstract film; a series of bustling streetscapes from that most photogenic of cities, Venice. Using a self-conscious experiment in frame rate and a structure borrowed from the most Venetian of concertos...Watch Movie
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Boccaccio '70
Four legendary filmmakers direct some of Europe's biggest stars in BOCCACCIO '70, a landmark anthology film. Mario Monicelli (BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET), Federico Fellini (LA DOLCE VITA), Luchino Visconti (THE LEOPARD) and Vittorio De Sica (BICYCLE THIEVES) direct Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg,...Watch Movie
