Italian cinema established its global prominence early with silent historical epics like Cabiria (1914), which innovated camera movements and grand-scale set designs. However, just after the First World War, Italian studios went bust due to Hollywood dominance. Mussolini’s Italy did have some decent movies, but they were broadly escapist, fascist-approved “White Telephone” (Telefoni Bianchi) films. It was White Telephone movies that filmmakers like Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, and Luchino Visconti broke away from when they took to the ruined streets to forge Italian Neorealism. Utilising non-professional actors, on-location shooting, and gritty, unembellished narratives, masterpieces such as Rome, Open City (1945) and Bicycle Thieves (1948) captured the raw socio-economic struggles of the post-war working class.

This movement directly set the stage for the economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s, a golden age where Rome’s Cinecittà studios became “Hollywood on the Tiber”, Sergio Leone reinvented the Western and Federico Fellini reinvented what cinema itself could be. Then came the downturn of the 1970s and 80s, caused by Italy’s economic stagnation, leading to a decline in studio funding and a shift in the industry, hence the thriving of the hyper-stylised Giallo horror films of Dario Argento and visceral poliziotteschi crime dramas. B

By the late 1980s and 1990s, a nostalgic, humanistic revival emerged to capture international acclaim, spearheaded by Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988) and Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful (1997). Now, modern Italian cinema continues with major directors like Paolo Sorrentino and Matteo Garrone.