The 40 most popular 1990s italian TV shows, ranked. Click any show for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


La Melevisione
1999
country: Italy
No overview available


Christopher Columbus
1992
country: Italy
The marvelous adventures and dramatic life of Christopher Columbus in the 15th century.


Enchantment
1998
country: Italy
Incantesimo is a long-running drama series on Italian television, broadcast on the RAI network. It is set in a hospital called Clinica Life in Turin, Italy, and revolves around the life of the doctors and nurses in the hospital. According to the official website, it is "interested in social themes, the incoherence of daily life, solidarity, love and passion, not forgetting moments of comedy". Incantesimo was first broadcast in March 1997, is now in its 10th series and has broadcast 400 episodes. Incantesimo is also being broadcast on the Chinese CCTV 8 network, dubbed into Mandarin. Many notable Italian actors and actresses have starred in the series including, Orso Maria Guerrini, Delia Boccardo, Kaspar Capparoni, Paolo Malco, Guido Furlani, Alessio Boni, Vanessa Gravina, Paola Pitagora, Alessandra Acciai and Barbara Livi. The series was especially popular in Bulgaria, where it was aired on BNT 1 and Nova Television. In Armenia it was aired on ArmeniaTV and TV5 in Russian, as well as on Shant TV in Armenian.


Never Say Goal
1990
country: Italy
No overview available


A Doctor in the Family
1998
country: Italy
The adventures of the unpredictable Martini family led by the tireless Grandpa Libero.


For a Handful of Books
1998
country: Italy
The Rai3 program that features two school classes comparing notes on a literary classic.


The Cave of the Golden Rose
1991
country: Italy
The king desires nothing more than a male heir. But his wife gives birth to a girl Fantaghirò. When she refuses to marry years later, she is sent in the forest where she learns how to ride and fight like a man. She appears disguised in a duel with Prince Romualdo, the son of her father's adversary. Both fall in love, but their marriage brings no peace to the united kingdom. Evil forces are trying to seize power.


Cinico TV
1992
country: Italy
The program consists of clips featuring interviews conducted by the two directors with alienated, crazy, and squalid characters against the backdrop of a desolate Sicily. A characteristic feature is the black and white footage. The subjects are all strictly male: there is no place for femininity in absolute squalor and desolation.


Lupo Alberto
1997
country: Italy
Lupo Alberto was born in 1973 from the pen of Silver, aka Guido Silvestri. The story of Lupo Alberto is very particular, since it involves a wolf and a hen: Alberto and Marta. Every night Alberto comes down from the hills to sneak into the McKenzie farm where Marta is waiting for him to propose to her. In these raids, Lupo must be very careful because Moses, the guard dog, is waiting for him. Their declaration of war is constant and turns into brawls and pranks that end up involving everyone on the farm.


Le Iene
1997
country: Italy
Comedy/satirical show, with sketches and reports into political affairs and consumer issues. Recurring features of the show, besides the reportage, are the double interviews in which two famous people are asked the same questions, and are edited together on a split screen, side by side so that they answer one after the other.
Paperissima Sprint
Paperissima Sprint
1990
country: Italy
No overview available


Detective Extralarge
1991
country: Italy
Jack Costello is a retired cop and now private detective who lives in Miami, who handles a myriad of cases for unusual clients. At his side are old police buddy Sam Bosley and cartoonist-turned-amateur sleuth Jean Philippe Dumas, who is using Costello as an influence and has nicknamed the burly detective "Extralarge." In the second series, Costello faces other dangerous cases, again with Bosley and Archibald, the son of an old friend, who Costello amusingly nicknames "Dumas."


Ciao Darwin
1998
country: Italy
Ciao Darwin is a variety game show format from Italy sold under licence to several countries, including Romania, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Canada, USA, China and Greece. There are two competing teams of about 50 people each, usually made up of people who fit certain opposing stereotypes. In each game two members of the audience are selected at random, one from each team, indicated by a light in front of them which remains illuminated when all the other team members' lights have gone off. The games involve contestants competing in acts of bravery, style and talent, some of which are designed to humiliate the contestants, especially an assault course which was introduced with the Italian version in 2010, and the Finale which is a water tank game.


Inspector Montalbano
1999
country: Italy
Inspector Montalbano is an Italian television series produced and broadcast by RAI since 1999, based on the detective novels of Andrea Camilleri. The protagonist is Commissario Salvo Montalbano, and the stories are set in the imaginary town of Vigata, Sicily. In 2012 the series generated a prequel, Il giovane Montalbano.


Sonic the Hedgehog
1993
country: Italy
Sonic, Tails, Princess Sally, and a band of freedom fighters battle to overthrow Dr. Robotnik, a despotic dictator who conquered their home planet Mobius years ago, and rules it as a polluted industrial dystopia.


Superquark
1995
country: Italy
Television program of cultural diffusion, born in September 1995, designed and conducted by Piero Angela, development of transmission appreciated Quark.


Zelig
1997
country: Italy
No overview available


Reporter Blues
1991
country: Japan
Reporter Blues is an Italian-Japanese cartoon/anime television series created by Marco Pagot and Gi Pagot and directed by Kenji Kodama. It consists of 52 half-hour episodes. The first season was aired in France in 1991. The second season was aired in 1996. The show was co-produced by RAI and TMS Entertainment.


Scherzi a parte
1992
country: Italy
No overview available


Robin Hood's Big Adventure
1990
country: Italy
Robin Hood's Big Adventure is an anime adaptation of the classic Robin Hood story consisting of 52 episodes. In this version, Robin and his allies are mostly pre-teens.


Chi ha incastrato Peter Pan?
1999
country: Italy
No overview available


Pocahontas
1997
country: Italy
In her journey, Pocahontas and her spiritual companion Hopi Ho, get the chance to become acquainted with the different ways of living of the different American Indian tribes that they visit.


Un Posto Al Sole
1996
country: Italy
The daily events of the inhabitants of the "Palladini Palace" are intertwined with each other between love stories and deceptions, and the splendid Gulf of Naples as a background.


Lucky Luke
1992
country: Italy
Lucky Luke is the sheriff of a merry and unruly frontier settlement. Jolly Jumper is not only Lucky’s trusty horse, but also the brains of Daisy Town. The four Dalton Brothers are the sworn enemies of Lucky Luke, who is constantly trying to thwart their devilish plans and their spectacularly clumsy escapes from the Daisy Town Jail. This fractious band finds itself caught up in a series of misadventures, crossing paths with hordes of wacky friends and fiendish enemies.


In the Beginning: The Bible Stories
1992
country: Italy
In the Beginning features episodes devoted to most of the major Bible stories of the Old Testament, including the stories of the Creation, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, Abraham and Isaac, Joseph, Moses, David, and Solomon, with the final episode featuring the birth of Jesus Christ. As with the second Superbook series, some stories were stretched out over several episodes. Unlike Superbook and The Flying House, however, no contemporary characters from modern times were inserted into the stories, save for the series mascot and viewpoint character, Roco the fox.


The Himalayas
1994
country: Germany
This is the story, in eight episodes, of the conquest of Mount Everest in the Himalayas and its impact on the world. We meet the climbers who reached the summit and those who perished attempting the ascent. We encounter the Sherpa people, an ethnic group originating from Tibet, explore high-altitude mountaineering techniques, and hear the stories of expedition leaders and team members throughout their journey, while cameras capture every danger on the icy peaks. Viewers will remember that Everest is a world of illusions, a world that can become hostile in an instant, swept by fierce winds and deadly ice slides. A more recent, political, ecological, and economic perspective focuses primarily on present-day Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan and their economies, including the Tibetan carpet industry and the Chinese occupation.
Sarabanda
Sarabanda
1997
country: Italy
No overview available


Finalmente Soli
1999
country: Italy
Finalmente soli is an Italian television series.


Simba: The King Lion
1995
country: Italy
After the lion king is shot by hunters, the other animals of the jungle decide to work together to raise his orphaned lion cubs, including his favorite son, Simba. Simba and his siblings end up being raised by a wolf along with a deer named Buckshot (changed from Bimbo to avoid being a walking copyright infringement), who had also previously lost his parents to hunters. It turns out the tiger Shere Khan was the one who arranged the death of Simba's father so he could be the king of the jungle, and he wishes to capture Simba with the help of his minions.
Disokkupati
Disokkupati
1997
country: Italy
Disokkupati is an Italian television series.


The Black Corsair
1998
country: Italy
The Black Corsair


The Marshal Rocca
1996
country: Italy
The adventures of the marshal of the carabinieri Giovanni Rocca, played by the great Gigi Proietti. Definitely one of the most successful Rai fictions ever, the series, after the first eight episodes broadcast in 1996, went on for six seasons, ending only in 2008. For over a decade the investigations and the private life of the marshal of Viterbo , born from an idea by Laura Toscano, have fascinated the television audience, making them become attached to characters such as the beautiful pharmacist Margherita (Stefania Sandrelli) or the brigadier Cacciapuoti (Sergio Fiorentini).


Carràmba! Che sorpresa
1995
country: Italy
No overview available


Nonno Felice
1993
country: Italy
Nonno Felice is an Italian television series.


Speciale Superquark
1998
country: Italy
Speciale Superquark was a spin off of the Superquark show, conceived and conducted by Piero Angela


College
1990
country: Italy
College is a 1990 Italian comedy television series, based on the 1983/4 film College. It aired on Tuesdays at 20.30 in Italy from March 6 to June 5 1990 for a total of 14 episodes. The episodes were directed by Lorenzo Castellano and Federico Moccia. The music for the series was provided by Claudio Simonetti. The female lead in the series is Federica Moro, Miss Italy, while her male counterpart, and her boyfriend, is Keith Van Hoven. The college featured in the series is located near the Naval Academy in the heart of Tuscany. The show was produced by Reteitalia and had excellent results in the ratings, with a peak of 6 million viewers per episode. It has since been re-run on numerous satellite channels.


Amico mio
1993
country: Germany
Amico mio is a 1993 Italian-German television series set in a children's hospital and stars Massimo Dapporto. The series, which focuses on the stories of Dr. Magri and his colleagues in the department of pediatrics of San Carlo di Nancy hospital in Rome, aired for two seasons on Rai 2 and then Canale 5, as well as on ZDF in Germany.


Private Crimes
1993
country: Italy
When a prominent businessman is found murdered, an ambitious newspaper reporter and a local police inspector will uncover a bizarre web of small-town corruption, violence and dark secrets.
Paperissima
Paperissima
1990
country: Italy
No overview available


The Seventh Scroll
1999
country: Italy
Past and present intertwine when an archaeologist and her husband find a mysterious child on the banks of the Nile and adopt him. But the more they learn about the lost tomb of Pharaoh Mamose, the more Hapi, the little child, is plagued by frightening visions. Soon it is clear that powerful forces are trying to prevent the couple from finding the tomb.
1990s television was the last era of true mass audiences, when a network sitcom or a season finale could be a shared national event.
Italian television's international profile rests largely on crime — organized-crime sagas rooted in specific cities and their histories, made with unusual documentary texture.