All world is a stage, Rome is the best!

[revised December 2023] Many films were shot in Rome, offering a great set to directors and a long tradition in the movie industry. Therefore a good way to prepare your trip to Rome or to re-live the sites you just visited is simply watching one of those immortal movies:

• Rome Open City by Rossellini: about the nazi occupation during WW2, a masterpiece of Italian neorealism
• A Roman Holiday by Wyler: simply unforgettable, delicious, brilliant and funny. You can feel like Audrey Hepburn booking our Vespa tour!
• Three Coins in the Fountain by Negulesco: the movie that made famous the Trevi fountain worldwide (and BTW the title is about three coins because there are three girls involved in the plot, but you just have to toss one coin in the fountain!)

• La Dolce Vita by Fellini: nothing to add, who doesn’t know this one? An insight on the Sixties in Rome… now the city is very different, do not expect “paparazzi” along Via Veneto anymore.
• Ben Hur by Wyler: you have to watch at least the famous scene of the race of the chariots  at Circo Massimo!
• The Gladiator by Scott: an accurate reconstruction of the life of gladiators in ancient Rome.
• Angels and Demons by Howard: little  history here, and less memorable than the other movies,  but an occasion to get to know some less famous corners of the city and Bernini’s masterpieces.
• Eat, Pray, Love by Murphy: in the first section Julia Roberts eats in Rome,  in the little alleys of the Renaissance district between Piazza Navona and Campo dei Fiori. And we can do the same while you are here!
• Caro Diario by Moretti: signed by a famous Italian film director. The first section just focus on images of several neighbourhoods of the “real Rome”, while the director/actor Nanni Moretti is driving his Vespa along a deserted Rome in the month of August.
• The Great Beauty by Sorrentino: this movie won an Oscar as “Best Foreign Language Film” in 2014. The main character is Jep Gambardella, who once wrote a famous novel only to retire into a comfortable life writing cultural columns and throwing parties in Rome. After his 65th birthday party, he walks through ruins meeting various characters, reflecting on his life, his first love, and his feelings of un-fulfilment.