Italian Movies Free On Youtube

[Jennifer Kovachick]

Tom Hanks stars as Professor Robert Langdon who is trying to solve the case of the kidnapped cardinals who have been taken from the Vatican to a secret location in Rome, Italy by an Illuminati terrorist.

Nominated for three Academy Awards, the all-star cast includes Matt Damon, Jude Law, Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who were all still at the beginning of their careers.

The main character of the film, Danny Ocean is portrayed by George Clooney along with an incredible cast of his real-life actor friends including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Scott Caan Elliott Gould, Bernie Mac, and Casey Affleck.

While Michael had a love story in Sicily with a beautiful young Sicilian woman who is sadly killed in a car bomb, his true love played by Diane Keaton is rekindled when he returns to the United States.

Set in Venice, Italy, and Los Angeles, the cast of this heist action film includes a star-studded cast with Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Donald Sutherland, and Seth Green.

Nominated for several Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Irishman used a de-aging technology that made the truck-driving Robert De Niro look decades younger, although many viewers, including myself, felt that the technology looked blurry and artificial.

The boy develops a crush on Malena, a great beauty in town played by the gorgeous Monica Belucci, and he takes on the role of her secret protector as her husband goes away to war and she is left to fend for herself.

Even if you are not a fan of foreign language films, in my opinion, this is the best foreign language film and if you have a love for all things Italian, as I do, I believe this will become a favorite film of yours as well.

Roberto Benigni is an Italian actor and director who both starred and played the lead in this heartbreaking tale of a Jewish Italian father and his son who were ripped from their beautiful life owning a bookshop in Italy and spending two years in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during WWII.

Both critics and audiences alike loved this film and it won 3 Academy Awards in 1998 including Best Actor for Roberto Benigni (the first time a non-English speaking actor) and Best Foreign Language Film.

For the best Italian movies of all time, this list of true Italian classics will treat you to films with some of the Italian greats such as Sergio Leone, Lino Ventura, Marcello Mastroianni, Federico Fellini, Ennio Morricone, and Pierfrancesco Favino.

Nathan is a writer, designer & horticulturist. He is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of "All Roads Lead to Italy" Magazine & host of the Top-10 Travel Podcast, "I'm Moving To Italy!". Nathan was born and raised in a 6th generation farming family in Northern California, he is currently, a dual Italian citizen, living in the Prosecco Valley of Northern Italy, near Venice.

When I've watched DVDs of Sergio Leone's "Spaghetti Westerns", such as A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I've had the option to choose soundtracks in either English or Italian. Both soundtracks seem to have been recorded by the original cast, and it isn't clear whether one or the other matches the actors' lips.

I'm afraid there is no "single original language". Actors performed using each one their own original language and then the movie was dubbed in the countries as necessary: in Italy, the English and Spanish actors, in the U.S. the Spanish actors and so on. Not even in the Italian version the lips are always synced so it's the same situation for everyone.

Every Italian movie in those years was dubbed: it was difficult to catch up the sounds and the voices with contemporary tecniques and directors cared more about the movies itself than the actors' voices. Each actor performed using his own voice and language and the movies were then dubbed (and not always synced).

As far as it is known no language is preferable, you can either watch it in Italian or English (there aren't puns you can't understand in one language or other). Also, maestro Sergio Leone never spoke about this.

Alas, Rick's Italy book doesn't list movie suggestions. I would love to load up my Netflix queue with some good Italian themed movies. I will be going to Cinque Terre, Tuscany and Rome. Ideas out there fellow travelers and movie buffs? P.S. I have about worn out my DVD "Under the Tuscan Sun" which only remotely follows the excellent book...

thanks DD and Dean. I got the Visions of Italy DVD and was really disappointed, nice if all you plan on doing is flying over head. I will rent the HBO Rome series, my history major son is a big fan of that. I have watched many of the ETBD Italy videos, both old and new. I like older movies too, like Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn. And I absolutely plan on watching La Dolce Vita.
Thanks!

"a Little Romance","Life is Beautiful","Godfather II and III", "Fellini Satyrion", "Houseboat","La Strada","The Italian Job","A Room with a View","The English Patient","The Talented Mr.Ripley",""Tea with Mussolini","The Agony and the Ecstasy","Only You", "Nurse Betty","Cleopatra","Spartacus","Ben Hur","Portrait of a Lady","3 Coins in a Fountain","The Last Kiss","Summertime","Death in Venice","Chasing Liberty","Bread and Tulips","Lizzie McGuire Movie","A Month by the Lake","When in Rome","My House in Umbria"...I know I'll probably come up with more. Movies are a great way to learn to appreciate history and culture before a trip!

3 Coins in the Fountain and Roman Holiday. Absolute classics. You can stay in the apartment block that Gregory Peck lives in in Rome. I did on my last visit and it's still just like it is in the movie!

In addition to all the above, the WWII move "A Walk in the Sun", all Italy based. Also the segments in the movie "Patton", from where Monty and Patton are in north africa planning the Sicily invasion, through to end of Sicily campaign, then to just after the end of the campaign where Patton is living in a big villa. I particularly liked the scene where they look down in the distance and see a long column of tank and artillery CRAWLING up a serpentine road. One thing that was not realistic in the Patton movie was the the lack of sweat, considering they were in Sicily in July and August.

1) Tea with Mussolini; (2) Two Women; (3) Life is Beautiful. All take place during WWII and were filmed in different parts of Italy. Life is Beautiful was filmed in Arezzo; a walk through that town takes you past posters illustrating the scenes taken at places you are seeing.

Speaker 1: 00:00 Excuse me. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were my husband. You must be Sergeant angel. Yes, I am. I enjoy scooper. I trust you had a pleasant trip. She just, I beg your pardon system of government characterized by extreme dictatorship. So going across, Oh, I see. It's fascism fascism. Wonderful.Speaker 2: 00:23 I know today's show is dedicated to a serious topic, but I have to confess that ever since hot fuzz came out, this is what first comes to mind. When I hear the word fascist I'm Beth, a Mondo and welcome to listener supported KPBS Sinema junkie podcast.Speaker 1: 00:51 [inaudible]Speaker 2: 00:51 So today's podcast stems in part from seeing a survey that came out last month, stating that two thirds of young American adults don't know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Plus a quarter of respondents, believe that the Holocaust was either a myth or had been exaggerated. The survey was conducted by the conference on Jewish material claims against Germany or the claims conference. So this got me thinking about that old adage. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. During subsequent surfing on the internet that day, I also came across an article entitled Donald Trump has no Mussolini, but liberal democracy could still be in danger. I was intrigued by that title and by the fact that it was written in 2016 and the author Kimber Quinny teaches history at Cal state university, San Marcos, which is near me. So today Sinema junkie offers a history lesson and takes a look at Italian films that explore fascism in Italy, in the 1920s, thirties, and forties, in order to see if there are any lessons to be learned, I've always felt that people paid too little attention to history and what it can teach us.Speaker 2: 02:00 But I also feel that pop culture and film specifically can help us discover history in ways that can be effective because they use narrative to engage us. People may resist learning about the dates and historical significance of important treaties or Wars, but mainstream audiences have embraced films, such as judgment at Nuremberg Schindler's list and 12 years of slave, all of which expose us to aspects of history through very personal stories. So as someone who's currently experiencing concerns and anxiety over the future of democracy in the U S I wanted to talk to Quinnie about what she thought Italy in the 1930s and forties might be able to teach us today and what films might help us appreciate those lessons. I've also invited Antonio in Nota artistic director of the San Diego Italian film festival to weigh in on both the historic and artistic assessment of the films. I need to take one quick break, and then I'll be back with my interview with Kimber Quinny from Cal state San Marcos.Speaker 3: 03:10 I like to look at movies from a point of view where you put them into a context that makes them a little more interesting. So I know that usually I have people on cinema junkie who are film experts or filmmakers, but today I am interested in having a historian, a professor of history at Cal state San Marcos, to talk about Italian films that reflect a certain period of time when fascism was rising in Italy. So Kimber, before we start talking about films, I want people to understand what your particular field of study is.Speaker 4: 03:48 Sure. Thanks. Thank you, Beth. Thanks for engaging this morning in this conversation, I'm looking very much looking forward to sharing some of my ideas with you. Uh, I am assistant professor of history at Cal state San Marcos, and my field is the history of us foreign relations. So I'm very interested in the ways in which the United States relates to the rest of the world. Obviously at the moment, there's a lot to talk about in that regard, but as an historian, of course, looking at the trajectory of American foreign relations from the start I teach about the history of the presidency as well. So I count myself as a political historian, but my focus is U S Italian relations. That's my doctoral research. And I'm particularly interested in the ways in which Italians resisted fascism, so the resistance movement, but also I listened very carefully to the voices of Italian refugees who were forced to flee fascism. Uh, many of whom came to the United States and, and wrote a lot about the Italian fascist experience. So, so that's my background.Speaker 3: 04:45 And the reason I came across your name and wanted to invite you on the show is that I found an article on the internet that you had written in 2016, and it was titled Donald Trump is no Mussolini, but liberal democracy could still be in danger. And that really intrigued me. So, first of all, what prompted you to write that articleSpeaker 4: 05:03 2016 seems like a long time ago now for all of that stuff. Thanks for asking about it. Let me just point out first and foremost, an as an a story. And I, I'm hesitant to use the word fascism to describe contemporary politics either globally or in the United States. And, and that's because in my mind, the Italian fascism originated in Italy in a specific place in a specific time, 1922. And what became Mussolini's version of fascism was very different to Hitler's version of Nazi-ism. And in my mind to the dictatorial regimes that we're seeing in the 21st century. So I want to be really Frank about that part of it. Um, the scholars that I look at and that I quote in the article, uh, max schooly and [inaudible] warned Americans to be aware of the potential threat of fascism and the conditions that give rise to it. And that sort of more systemic perspective, uh, I think, uh, is relevant. But I also, as I point out in the article, I also want to learn from history obviously, and from the Italian case in particular. And there are some trends in Italy, in the 1920s that gave rise to fascism that resonate. And that's, that's what I focus on in the article.Speaker 3: 06:13 And now we are four years later facing another election. And I'm just wondering how you feel right now, having written that article and kind of referencing history. And what do you see that maybe we need to be kind of looking at?Speaker 4: 06:29 Sadly, I think the conditions that the Italians, uh, at the time, the 1930s warned about, um, are, are similar to those that we're experiencing, uh, in 2020. And in particular, one of the messages that the refugee scholars brought with regard to the Italian experience was that, uh, fascism thrives in chaos, fascism thrives in conflict. And so ultimately in the Italian case there, the breaking down of the national community came, uh, in pieces, but resulted in, in the harassment of Italian citizens and in a sense of panic and fear among Italians and, and they were reduced to two craving stability. In other words, the conflict and the divisions became so deep and experienced at such an individual level that ultimately Italians craved, what would to school, he calls quote the fascist piece. And I fear, uh, uh, we're living in this environment where we're feeling bombarded and unsettled and insecurities and divisions are, are increasing daily.Speaker 4: 07:40 And I fear that that kind of burden, uh, is, is bad for democracy. Italian fascism was not caused by a coup or revolution. And it wasn't as, as some of the scholars that I study, the refugee scholars, I study it, it wasn't reactionary in any regard whatsoever. In fact, it really came into being through bureaucracy through, through democratic legislation that existed in the state in Italy. And so it was implemented through democratic structures. And in fact, the fascist state leveraged laws and took advantage of democracy and Italy in order to push forward a very illiberal undemocratic regime. So Mussolini used democratic tools to empty the nation of democratic goals. And I think that's important to be reminded that the system in which any given ideology is functioning is really important for us to pay attention to.Speaker 3: 08:38 So one of the refugees that you studied or whose work came up is Max's Scully, and you sent me some notes you had, and he had a really interesting quote, I thought about what he described as the fascist technique. And I wonder if you can elaborate on that. I've been reading a lot Maxim school he's writing.Speaker 4: 08:56 He was very prolific in his writing. So it's a gift to historians when the voices of those who experience whatever we're looking at left, tell us a lot about it. And so, um, thank you for acknowledging that schooly, uh, Scalia was a Jewish Italian refugee, um, and he describes this technique of intentionally and strategically creating constant social unrest, endless political insecurity. And, and he describes it as quote, the cost of politics. What, what he suggests is that the fascist regime was very, uh, focused in its efforts to break down a sense of national community. And the result is, was panicked individuals feeling harassed, feeling burdened by the divisions between and among them. And ultimately according to a school Italians were reduced to being in conflict. And as a consequence, this cost the cost of politics as he describes, it reached an an unendurable level and ultimately Italians were ready to accept what Sculley called the quote fascist piece to just have stability, to accept mousseline these regulations, those who did accept them, obviously a Scalia and other anti-fascist were forced to flee, but those who stayed in Italy, just, just crave stability, political stability. Ultimately,Speaker 3: 10:20 Can you talk a little bit about the role that the press played in all this and in the lead up to fascism in Italy, Mussolini wasSpeaker 4: 10:28 Journalists. So what's interesting about Muslim's background is that he was very clever and well well versed at using the press to his advantage. And that's not coincidentally, I think in the way in which he managed to do that, authoritarian regimes thrive on falsehoods and conspiracy theories. And we witnessed this in the Italian case. So not only was the press censored, and of course the fascist regime worked very hard to get certain messages out to the Italian people, but it was also skewed. It was also exaggerated. It was also manipulated to create, again, as a school, you would call it the cost or the burden of politics that were multiplied by the messages that the Italian fascist regime put out to the Italian people. Conspiracy theories are a really interesting aspect of fascism. And obviously not only in the Italian case, but as we know, only too well in the case of German, not Susan. And so, again, it's, it's the ways in which, uh, fascism in Italy attempted to break down democracy, hollowed out from the inside, out using democratic regimes and legislation, and not in an illegal way, but finding ways to eliminate democracy piece by piece and the press was a tool for doing that.Speaker 3: 11:51 One of the things that, uh, Sculley alsoSpeaker 4: 11:54 Addressed was this notion of that democracy is something that needs to be protected and people need to understand kind of how it works in order to keep it going. It seems so obvious that really the, the necessity to protect and strengthen democracy against fascism, that seems so straight forward, but it's another way of looking at the problem. And so what a school it came to the United States, he, he wrote a lot to warn Americans about the potential vulnerability of even American democracy to fascist tendencies. He toured in the 1930s with Dorothy Thompson around the nation, talking about this very phenomenon that the most formidable enemy to fascism, according to a scolding and others was in fact, a strong democracy. And so he spent a lot of time and effort in his writing public writing to remind Americans that we needed to learn more about democracy and what makes it work in order to fight potential threats, such as fascism as a history professor.Speaker 4: 12:53 I'm sure you constantly find yourself in the situation of saying like, why can't people learn from history? Why can't we remember history? So what would be a key point looking back at Italy in the 1930s, that you would want to point out to people and say like, Hey, this is something maybe you want to think about now, fascism in Italy did not occur in an international vacuum. And, and this seems we need reminding of this, that there was a goalable environment. The conditions that gave rise to Italian fascism were not limited to the state. Fascism had a direct relationship to political, economic and social conditions. And those were insecurities, economic crises, deep seated divisions politically after the first world war. And so for me, when I remind my students as an historian, I want to remind them that historical conditions can help us appreciate the environment that was created than these conditions that converged to put democracy at risk. And so if we can look not only at strengthening our democratic institutions and voting, when my students to, you know, democracy is a bourbon to vote, but really take a hard look at some of the conditions that are existing globally that are giving rise to an erosion of, of these democratic principles. And yes, we are going to talk about some Italian films that reflect what was going on in Italy at the time, and also films from much later that looked back on this, let's start with Roberto Rossellini's Rome open city. This came in 1945Speaker 5: 14:39 [inaudible]Speaker 4: 14:40 Italy's film industry had gone through a real difficult period and had to kind of rebuild itself, uh, after the war. And this is when we have neorealism coming up, but this film inSpeaker 3: 14:52 Particular deals with what it would have felt like to be in Rome, uh, in that time.Speaker 4: 15:00 Uh, yes, and that's of course, you know, classic near realist perspective. And I'm one of the, for me, in my mind, the value of the film is not so much in the narrative, but in the conditions under which the script was developed in the film was made, as you've just described it. The fact, I, I think it brings as others have observed, I'm not alone in this regard, brings a set a real sense of the experience of what it would have been like in 19 filmed in 1944, but what it would, what it was like. And so that reality or that Neo realistic perspective is really valuable, I think for us, but also because I studied the American liberation of Italy and in August, 1943, and, and it was complicated, right? So the, the Americans go in, they, they liberate Italy and I'm putting literally, he can't see, he put liberate in quotes, but the complicated reality that follows Rome, open city describes these interwoven stories of everyday Italians, trying to struggle under fascist rule. And then when liberation comes, they have different struggles to face. So what I really appreciate about the film is the complexity and the complexity and human behavior in this transition from living having lived under fascism and then German occupation, and then American liberation and, and the relationships that that develop as a consequence.Speaker 3: 16:17 What kind of things did you see in that film that kind of reflected some of what you were reading from these refugees that you were studying through your history?Speaker 4: 16:27 The divisions in Italy preceded world war II, and I think have a lot to do with the rise of fascism. So the conditions in Italy, self, I think what the film brings forward, but also the underground resistance groups of world war II, really Italians had to either resist and fight back or flee. And, and in the case of the refugees I studied, that was the choice that they were forced to make. And so I think it's this notion that people, no matter if they're, you know, when backed into a quarter, people behave differently depending on our individual circumstances. And the film really brings this aspect of human behavior to lightSpeaker 3: 17:07 Well, Rome open city deals with Italy during the war, but there's a film, hopefully I'm pronouncing it right. Ani facili made in 1948 by Luigi ZAPA. And he has a tendency to look at Italy before the war. So things leading into it. And what about that time period interests youSpeaker 4: 17:28 Only the futility, that's how we pronounce that title. And the film was made in 1948, as you point out again, maybe because of my historical perspective, what I really appreciate about the films objective, the director's objective is to try to get to the origin of fascism to begin. And so part of understanding where we are is understanding where we have been. And I think the film really works hard to unravel some of the, as I suggested earlier, the divisions that existed in Italy, there were major divisions between the North and the South. The Southern part of Italy was notoriously undereducated, impoverished, not industrialized. And so the northerners in Italy looked down on the southerners and that division, those divisions politically, economically, and socially, and culturally were divisions that Mussolini was able to shoot to take advantage of. And I think the film does a good job of looking at those, um, that aspect of Italian life and history is all about choices and people make choices, right? So it's about understanding why people make the choices they make. Um, but I also appreciate that, that it takes more effort to go back. We're already bombarded and dealing with everything that's coming at us from every direction in the moment. And so I'm sort of pausing to look at history, takes diligence. It sort of takes a different kind of rationale and not everyone is prepared or wanting willing to do that. I appreciate why. And do you feelSpeaker 3: 18:55 That film has, uh, maybe has more potential to help people remember history because it presents it in a compelling narrative structure and that may be, this is one way to help kind of keep history alive.Speaker 4: 19:11 Yes, most definitely. We, you know, there's a field in history, film history, and even those of us who don't call ourselves film historians will use film frequently in the classroom for the reasons you're describing. And also to not really the, the, the story that the director, uh, brings brings to life or a film is based on a memoir or a novel. So the novelists may have already sort of laid out the narrative, but also historians look at the journey itself or production of the film, or in the case of Romo consider, you may be aware of Beth that the path to the U S premiere was also very interesting, historically, the film premiered in New York and in the first part of 1946, but the American release was censored. It resulted in a cut of about 15 minutes. Um, there was sort of controversy about the films. So historians look not only and, and want to share films and discuss them. Um, not only because of the stories that are visually told, but also the history of the filmmaking itself and how, how it came to beSpeaker 3: 20:14 Another film, which was made from a, which was made from a greater historical perspective. 1979 is Christ stopped at a BOLI by Francisco Rossi. And what was it about this film that intrigued you from a historical context?Speaker 4: 20:28 This film is based on a memoir by Carlo lovey lovey published a novel of the same book, rather of the same title in 1945. Carla lovey was forced into exile because of his antifascist leanings from, so from 1935 to 36, he traveled to a remote, more remote part of Italy. And this is what he describes in his book and what is portrayed in the film. So the film captures as lovey described the deep divisions in Italy that I had referenced earlier, a North versus South industrial versus peasant wealthy versus impoverished. And these conditions are the conditions under which fast fascism thrives. And there's no question about it and love the, and the character in the film come to terms with the different side or different sides of Italy. And, and therefore start to appreciate not in a positive way, but start to understand how in fact fascism came to be in Italy.Speaker 4: 21:30 And so this is a film that I, I recommend for my students at won a BAFTA in 1983, um, and, and opens our eyes to some of the conditions that gave rise to Italian. Fascism is lovey to describe them. Now, I don't know how reliable a source Wikipedia is, but I did find that, uh, Rossi's father was a cartoonist who had been reprimanded for satirical drawings of muscle Leni, which I find interesting. That is, it is, that's what I mean by looking not only at the films themselves, but the history of the filmmakers. And yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's now another film from the 1970s in which Italian filmmakers look back on this period of, uh, the war and what led up to it is, uh, Victoria to CICA is the garden of Kinsey continued. This one people may be well aware of because it was nominated for an Oscar. And, um, got a, a decent release here in the U S and this is about Jewish persecution in the 1930s. I want to remind your listeners that the Jewish Italian experience really, we don't talk enough about that. Frankly, we obviously discuss a lot the Jewish German experience and other parts of Europe, Eastern Europe, as well, but Jewish families were directly impacted by fascismSpeaker 5: 23:05 [inaudible]Speaker 4: 23:06 In a very cynical way, shows how wealth was a factor that plays into those who were protected in some ways from fascism. So the fiancee continues or a Jewish Italian family who are very wealthy and they provide shelter from, for a while or other Jewish Italians from Mussolini's antisemitic policies. So, so the filmmakers really pointing to a couple of different things. One is the threat to Jewish Italians, which is important for us to be reminded of by fascism, but also this notion that wealth and privilege seemed to buffer from some of these harsh realities of the regime by 1943, in the film, the film shows that all of the young Jewish youth who had been coming to this state of the fence, he continues to play tennis or whatever they were doing are either arrested or are fighting in the war or have been drawn in. And so, and so the buffer that I described could only last for so long, and I, and I filmed the film really demonstrates this way.Speaker 3: 24:07 So the sense of looking back on history continues, there's a 2018 film called red land, which looks back to Italy in 1943. How do you look at this in the sense of how history persists for Italian filmmakers and how they continue to revisit it? What do you see in the way they're revisiting it? Are they finding new aspects to the stories from that time? How does a historian do kind of read these more recent filmsSpeaker 4: 24:35 And red land in particular is a good example of a young director who is looking at the more complicated or complex aspects of Italian fascism. In this particular film, the focus is on a different region of Italy that has maybe not received as much attention as it should read along the Italian Yugoslav border. And the experience that's showed in the film is that it's, can't predict how people are going to respond. And so I think in the case of red land and more recent