Best Italian music movies

The story of a virtuoso piano player who lives his entire life aboard an ocean liner. Born and raised on the ship, 1900 learned about the outside world through interactions with passengers, never setting foot on land, even for the love of his life. Years later, the ship may be destroyed, and a former band member fears that 1900 may still be aboard, willing to go down with the ship.

300 years of a remarkable musical instrument. Crafted by the Italian master Bussotti (Cecchi) in 1681, the red violin has traveled through Austria, England, China, and Canada, leaving both beauty and tragedy in its wake. In Montreal, Samuel L Jackson plays an appraiser going over its complex history.

The rise and fall of the pirate mixtape empire of three brothers from Naples, Italy, during the '80s.

A portrait of Ennio Morricone, the most popular and prolific film composer of the 20th century, the one most loved by the international public, a two-time Oscar winner and the author of over five hundred unforgettable scores.

In the 16th century, poet, playwright and part-time actor Miguel de Cervantes has been arrested, together with his manservant, by the Spanish Inquisition. They're accused of presenting an entertainment offensive to the Inquisition. Inside the huge dungeon into which they have been cast, the other inmates gang up on Cervantes and his manservant, staging a mock trial, with the intention of stealing or burning his possessions. Cervantes wishes to desperately save a manuscript he carries with him and stages, with costumes, makeup, and the participation of the other prisoners, an unusual defense—the story of Don Quixote.

The film is a parody of Disney's Fantasia, though possibly more of a challenge to Fantasia than parody status would imply. In the context of this film, "Allegro non Troppo" means Not So Fast!, an interjection meaning "slow down" or "think before you act" and refers to the film's pessimistic view of Western progress (as opposed to the optimism of Disney's original).

April 24, 1993: it's the last broadcast of Radiofreccia, an independent radio station closing after 18 years, barely one minute before coming of age. Bruno, one of its founders, begins to tell its story, the story of a group of friends—especially troubled Freccia's—and a period of their youth in their small hometown.

A biopic on the personal and artistic life of Italian songwriter Fabrizio De André.

A Camorra boss fakes his own death in order to start a new life elsewhere with his family, but a nurse happens to see him alive and well after the funeral. A hitman is promptly sent to get rid of her, only to find out that she's his first and unforgotten love. He decides to protect her, becoming himself a target.

In late 18th century Venice, in a convent school for girls, Teresa, a student with prophetic gifts, joins forces with some amazing music-makers. They create a new kind of pop, bright and bold, and challenge the ancient and rigid system.

The movie is a biopic about Mia Martini, an italian singer who died in 1995.

An orchestra assembles for a rehearsal in an ancient chapel under the inquisitive eyes of a TV documentary crew, but an uprising breaks out.

It's the movie that retraces the Laura’s life in a wholly original way. Through never-seen-before footage of her real and fictional life, the artist shows us her essence, giving an honest and bold analysis of her life and how it could have been without that victory at Sanremo that, in 1993, changed her destiny forever.

One of the most famous Italian singers opens up about his music and his journey through love and addiction.

Naples, 18th century. Salvatore "Totò" Sapore, an unemployed minstrel, always manages to cheer up the hungry with his songs about good food, always upsetting Vesuvia, a magma witch who lives inside the Vesuvius.

A female rock band acquires an infamous composition by Niccolò Paganini that was used in satanic rituals. When the band decides to record the song and film a video in Paganini's old mansion, the spirit of the deceased composer is summoned and the band unlocks a portal to Hell.

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli grew up in Lajatico, a rural village in Tuscany, where his family still farms nearby. In July 2007, on the slopes of his ancient hill town, a special theater was constructed for a one-night-only concert of his greatest popular hits along with new songs performed to honor the occasion. Some famous musical friends dropped by and the magical result is Andrea Bocelli - Vivere - Live in Tuscany, premiering this December on PBS.

Live concert by Pink Floyd in Piazza San Marco, Venezia, in 1989, performing: Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Learning To Fly, Yet Another Movie, Round And Around, Sorrow, The Dogs Of War, On The Turning Away, Time, The Great Gig In The Sky, Wish You Were Here, Money, Another Brick In The Wall, part two, Comfortably Numb, Run Like Hell.

"When in Rome" is a live DVD by the legendary British rock band Genesis, capturing their performance at Circus Maximus in Rome, Italy, on July 14, 2007, during their highly acclaimed "Turn It On Again Tour." This tour marked the reunion of the band's classic lineup of Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford. The decision to make the Rome concert free was a heartfelt gesture of gratitude from Genesis to their Italian fans, who had been loyal supporters since the band's early days in the 1970s. This extraordinary event drew an estimated audience of over 500,000 people, not only from Italy but from all over Europe, making it one of the largest concerts in terms of audience size ever recorded.

The daring story of two friends, with a common musical past and a future to be written.

A feisty 18-year-old Italian-American New Yorker named Cindy is sent off to Rome with her irascible stepmother and vain stepsisters. On the way, she meets and falls in love with, globetrotting bagpacker Mizio, who eventually turns out to be of Italian nobility. There's a fairy stand-in in the form of a spaced-out astrologer, a dance, and she even loses a shoe at one point. Care to venture a guess how it all turns out?

Screen adapatation of Mozart's greatest opera. Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music!

The police infiltrates an unemployed classically-trained musician into a wedding band in order to drive out an elusive Camorra boss.

Blending animated storytelling with intimate narration, this documentary paints a soulful portrait of the anonymous Neapolitan singer known as Liberato.

An account of the life and artistic career of Raffaella Carrà (1943-2021), Italian pop star and television personality, told through the voices of those who knew her best.

This “Traviata” became one of the most succesful of all opera films, especially in France, where 800,000 Parisian cinemagoers flocked to it in the first six week. It was nominated for two Oscars (for production and costume design) and won BAFTAs in those two categories, as well as receiving BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations as 1983’s Best Foreign-Language Film.

From his impressive back catalogue as a cinematic composer, the illustrious Ennio Morricone conducts a moving and uplifting tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks and to all victims of unjust tragedies throughout history. Filmed in 2007 in high definition at the historic Piazza San Marco in Venice, this remarkable live performance features music from 'Cinema Paradiso', 'The Good The Bad and The Ugly', 'Once Upon a Time in America', 'Love Circle', 'The Mission' and many other timeless classics.

A doll claiming his humanity represent all the human being and the idea that we are all the same, we are all equals, we are human beings.

The lives of two local professional dancers change suddenly as American soldiers stop in their town hoping to be entertained in accordance with the Broadway style. Effectively, they perform up to their expectations. However, as the army men have to march northward, their moment of glory finishes heartlessly.

When a producer refuses to cut Massimo and his band a record unless they hire an "ethnic" singer to spice up the act, he tries to seduce Jing, a Chinese girl with a beautiful voice disinterested in both him and rock, to get her on board. She pretends to cave in in order to escape an arranged marriage, but in the weeks preceding the concert the two begin to grow closer, complicating the secretly fake nature of their relationship.

The life and times of Italian music legend Renato Carosone.

A documentary about Italian singer Ultimo.

Based on Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci. The film recounts the tragedy of Canio, the lead clown (or pagliaccio in Italian) in a commedia dell'arte troupe, his wife Nedda, and her lover, Silvio. When Nedda spurns the advances of Tonio, another player in the troupe, he tells Canio about Nedda's betrayal. In a jealous rage Canio murders both Nedda and Silvio. The only actor in the cast who also sang his role was the celebrated Italian baritone, Tito Gobbi, but the film is largely very faithful to its source material, presenting the opera nearly complete.

"Acoustica" is a 2001 unplugged album by German hard rock band Scorpions. It was recorded during three concerts at the Convento do Beato in Lisbon, Portugal, in February 2001. It was a most unusual set for the band, as Klaus Meine comments on the DVD. The band was supported by backing vocalists, a percussionist, an extra guitarist and Christian Kolonovits (who had worked with the band as conductor and arranger on the Moment of Glory album) on keyboards. He also collaborated on rearranging the songs for the acoustic set. The band performed four new songs: "Life Is Too Short", "Back To You", "I Wanted To Cry" and "When Love Kills Love", which was released as single. All the new songs were featured on the DVD, while "Back To You" was not included on the CD. Acoustica also contains cover versions of songs such as The Cars' "Drive", Kansas' "Dust In The Wind" and the Queen hit "Love Of My Life".

Marvin Gaye: Live in Montreux 1980 is a taped performance of singer Marvin Gaye's performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, recorded on July 17, 1980. Gaye included this performance as part of a European tour. Gaye performs a majority of his hits from his recent disco-funk hits "Got to Give It Up" and "A Funky Space Reincarnation", to his duet hits with Tammi Terrell including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing", in which Gaye re-interpolated the songs as a somber tribute to Terrell, who died over a decade before, to sixties Motown classics such as "I'll Be Doggone", "Ain't That Peculiar", "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" and "I Heard It through the Grapevine", to seventies standards such as "What's Going On", "Trouble Man" and "Let's Get It On". The Montreux set was later released as a CD/DVD in 2003.

Charlotte, a spontaneous and creative girl, is busy organizing a school dance to raise the necessary funds to save the natural oasis where she spent the best moments of her childhood. She tries in every way to show herself perfect in the eyes of the whole school, but in this way she ends up losing her sincerity, ruining her love story with Davide and above all the relationship with her best friend, Sophia. To find the things that really matter, Charlotte must first be able to find herself.

A concert by Ultimo.

With its cast of hundreds, thrilling score, and sweeping tale of love and heroics in ancient Egypt, Verdi’s Aida has long been a fixture on the stages of every major opera house in the world. For the 2018 revival of Sonja Frisell’s monumental production of this grand masterpiece, the Met assembled a truly all-star cast. Soprano Anna Netrebko takes on the title role for the first time at the Met, and mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili plays her rival, the conniving princess Amneris. Tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko is Radamès, the warrior that both women love, and Quinn Kelsey lends his robust baritone to Aida’s father, the fallen king Amonasro. Maestro Nicola Luisotti is on the podium to conduct this epic performance, filmed as part of the Met’s series of Live in HD cinema transmissions.

Musicfilm with unpublished images from the life of the most famous Italian trapper: Sfera Ebbasta. Between concerts, studio sessions and lifestyle, the movie retraces his entire artistic career from the beginning together with producer Charlie Charles, to international success. With testimonials from Marracash, Shablo, Steve Aoki and Rvssian.

A love, a journey, perhaps an obsession, the thin line between life and death constantly questioned by love, an immortal feeling, yet experienced by mortals. This animated and musical short film features young Orpheus, the quintessential archetype of the poet, embarking on a journey that will lead him into the depths of the underworld, in a desperate attempt to bring his deceased wife Eurydice back to life

This work predates Thchaikowsly’s for almost 4 years, and it is base don the Schiller play I have previously criticized for its lack of historical accuracy. It is essentially focused on three major voices, soprano, tenor and baritone, with a basso to spice it up. New Yorker Evan Bowers may not be a matinee idol, but he sails into the role with a bright, focused lyrico spinto tenor voice. Renato Bruson was 72 years old in 2008, when he took this role (first sung by him in1989) and it shows, with quite a wobble on many passages; yet his voice commands the stage and rises majestically in the ensembles. And then, Bulgarian Svetla Vassileva, who is not burned at the stake, as in “Maid”, but dies heroically in battle.

Notre Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bell-ringer of the cathedral of Notre-Dame and of his impossible and tragic love for Esmeralda, a beautiful gypsy. A love condemned by injustice and hypocrisy. Quasimodo forced by his ugliness to look at the world from the top of a tower one day he falls madly in love with Esmeralda who sees dancing and singing on the square in front of the cathedral. But Esmeralda is in love with Febo, the handsome captain of the King's guards. Febo is fiancé of Fiordaliso, a young and rich bourgeois, but the exotic and sensual beauty of the gypsy does not leave indifferent the man who immediately falls in love with her. Even Frollo, the archdeacon of the cathedral, is attracted by the gypsy and spying on the moves of the two lovers in a raptus of jealousy and repressed carnal desire to get rid of the rival stabbing Febo behind.

Every expectant mother dreams of a bright future for the child she is carrying. As in anticipation, a shooting star falls from a night sky, tracing the dreams of mothers and fathers alike.

This documentary explores the partnership between the prolific singer-songwriter and pioneering rock band — and their historic 1979 Genoa concert.

A family gathers around a bed to sing a lament to their own deaths, accompanied by a blackbird.

A docufilm that tells the life of Mahmood between Milan and Egypt, his dearest loved ones, the music, the victories in Sanremo, Eurovision, the European tour, the backstage of the his works. An inner journey that has music as its backbone and where love and absence find their way to coexist. Thanks to his music we explore Alessandro's world, his search for something, which led him to have more than he could dream of and which always accompanies his distant gaze, as if every time he had to go home from a trip or leave. for a new goal.

A documentary about Squallor, Italy's first and most successful "ghost band" project, created by four big bosses of 70's-80's Italian music business.

Renée Fleming has matured into one of the finest sopranos around at the moment, a true star with a sparkling personality and a velvet-toned voice that is capable of wringing the finest emotions out of works by Strauss and Tchaikovsky that from a lesser singer could sound rather cold and clinical. I wouldn't have thought her voice would be so well suited to Violetta Valéry in La Traviata, and it does take some getting used to, but I think she at least brings a distinct quality to the role with an emotional heart that isn't always necessarily there when a leading diva uses it primarily as a display for her vocal talents. It's served well also by Antonio Pappano's conducting of the Royal Opera House Orchestra in a traditional, but effective production by Richard Eyre.

DON GIOVANNI is one of the timeless classics of all opera. Mozart’s music, and the words of his great collaborator Da Ponte, are brought to life in Francesca Zambello’s engrossing production with its rich and colourful designs by Maria Bjornson. The music is memorable, dramatic and enjoyable: from the seductive solo voices of the famous ‘La ci darem la mano’ to the fabulous ensemble as Don Giovanni’s infatuated conquests, vengeful victims and their outraged relatives join forces for justice. And retribution does finally come to Don Giovanni, a serial womanizer and a murderer, with the searing flames of Hell ready to engulf him. Simon Keenlyside heads the outstanding cast at the Covent Garden Royal Opera House, conducted by renowned Mozart expert Charles Mackerras.

As the release of the ‘Tutto Verdi’ series from the Teatro Regio progresses, one has begun to have fears that the later Verdi operas will fail to measure up to the standards that have been set on DVD by productions from international houses across the globe. The issues of the early and middle period Verdi works have been welcome, because these pieces are so rarely encountered in the opera house; but with Macbeth and Luisa Miller we are coming to operas that have been performed by major artists in major productions with superb orchestras and conductors.

A tangle of stories in which aspirations and yearnings for freedom on the part of the white-collar worker are intertwined with those of Cristiano's personal and musical life in a discourse on our contemporary world.

Star soprano Anna Netrebko created a sensation with her riveting performance as the malevolent Lady Macbeth, the central character in Verdi’s retelling of Shakespeare’s tragedy. She is joined by Željko Lučić, who brings dramatic intensity and vocal authority to the title role of the honest general driven to murder and deceit by his ambitious wife. The great René Pape is Banquo and Joseph Calleja gives a moving performance as Macduff. Adrian Noble’s powerful production provides an ideal setting for this dark drama, which is masterfully presided over by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi.

Ezio Bosso reveals his real self and takes us into his world and his imagination, as if were a diary.

The production bears the imprint of the conductor, Marko Letonja, and the director, Tobias Richter, whose understanding is ideal: both breathe a troupe spirit - specific to comedy - into this heterogeneous cast, which brings together young and old. Both give as much importance to recitatives as to arias and ensembles.