The 37 most popular 2000s italian movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Angels & Demons
2009 · 2h 19m
country: Italy
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is recruited by the Vatican to investigate the apparent return of the Illuminati – a secret, underground organization – after four cardinals are kidnapped on the night of the papal conclave.


Malena
2000 · 1h 48m
country: Italy
12-year-old Renato experiences three significant events on the same day: the beginning of the Second World War, getting a bike, and witnessing the arrival of the gorgeous Malèna. Through his eyes, we see the curse of beauty and loneliness of Malena, whose husband is presumed dead, and, through his soul, we see his love for her.


The Dreamers
2003 · 1h 55m
country: France
When Isabelle and Theo invite Matthew to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and everything is possible.


CQ
2001 · 1h 28m
country: United States
A young filmmaker in 1960s Paris juggles directing a cheesy sci-fi debacle, directing his own personal art film, coping with his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend, and a new-found infatuation with the sci-fi film's starlet.


Nada más
2001 · 1h 30m
country: Cuba
Carla, a young postal worker in Havana, spends her days postmarking thousands of letters and dreaming of the day when she can be reunited with her parents, who moved to Miami when she was fifteen. To fulfill her longing for intimacy, she opens random letters and rewrites them into lyrical prose, believing she is helping her fellow Cubans understand one another better. Beautifully filmed in black and white accented by brilliant colours, Nada+ has a stunning visual composition. With its delightful mix of visual humour, theatrical characters, satire and a lighthearted love story, it has a distinctly Cuban flair.


Melissa P.
2005 · 1h 40m
country: Italy
An adolescent girl, living with her mother and her grandmother, will have her first sexual experiences in a heavy and excessive way.


Swept Away
2002 · 1h 29m
country: Italy
Stranded and alone on a desert island during a cruise, a spoiled rich woman and a deckhand fall in love and make a date to reunite after their rescue.


Eros
2004 · 1h 49m
country: France
A three-part anthology about love and sexuality: a menage-a-trois between a couple and a young woman on the coast of Tuscany; an advertising executive under enormous pressure at work, who, during visits to his psychiatrist, is pulled to delve into the possible reasons why his stress seems to manifest itself in a recurring erotic dream; a story of unrequited love about a beautiful, 1960s high-end call girl in an impossible affair with her young tailor.


Fat Girl
2001 · 1h 26m
country: France
Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile, nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.


Gomorrah
2008 · 2h 17m
country: Italy
An inside look at Italy's modern-day crime families, the Camorra in Naples and Caserta. Based on a book by Roberto Saviano. Power, money and blood: these are the "values" that the residents of the Province of Naples and Caserta have to face every day. They hardly ever have a choice and are forced to obey the rules of the Camorra. Only a lucky few can even think of leading a normal life.


The Best of Youth
2003 · 6h 7m
country: Italy
After a fateful encounter in the summer of 1966, the lifepaths of two brothers from a middle-class Roman family diverge, intersecting with some of the most significant events of postwar Italian history in the following decades.


The Listening
2006 · 1h 45m
country: Italy
Estranged by the degree of corporate influence within the largest U.S. listening station in the world, an aging NSA officer defects and mounts a clandestine counter-listening station high in the Italian alps.


Secret Agents
2004 · 1h 49m
country: Spain
From his offices in Switzerland, Russian Igor Lipovsky is engaged in a vast and profitable gunrunning operation with Africa. The French government wants to hinder the activities of the arms dealer and sends a team to sink one of his ships heading for Angola with a load of illegal weaponry. Lisa, Brisseau, Loïc, Tony and Raymond are professionals: they carefully set up their cover, plan all their moves meticulously, and carry out orders without asking questions. Perhaps they should. The code-name of the mission is "Janus"; and just like with the ancient deity, there are two opposite faces for every aspect of the operation: the objective of the French government, the role of each team member, the presumed friend and the assumed foe...


Winx Club: The Secret of the Lost Kingdom
2007 · 1h 25m
country: Italy
Sixteen years ago the most powerful warrior wizards of the Magic Dimension sacrificed themselves to fight against absolute evil. Now the fate of a kingdom is in the hands of a young girl - Bloom, the fairy of the Dragon's flame. Accompanied by her Winx Club girlfriends, Bloom must overcome the greatest challenge of all: enter the depths of the obscure dimension, fight against evil to bring her parents back to life and reveal the mystery linked to her origins. The destiny of the entire Magic Dimension depends on the outcome of this conflict.


Black Angel
2002 · 2h 8m
country: Italy
Livia, the attractive wife of a high-ranking Ministry of the People's Republic official, is accompanied by Ugo, a lawyer, her admirer and her husband's spy, to Venice. There, she is to meet her lover Helmut Schultz, a lieutenant in the infamous SS with whom she is having a passionate love affair. During the journey, Livia retraces the steps of her sexual aberration. But a surprise awaits her in the lagoon city.


Zinanà
2004 · 13m
country: Italy
A Donatello award winning short film about the Archangel Tarturro who declares that he will learn to play the cymbals - a skill he acquires, even if he is not quite as good as the other members of his band.


Melancholie der Engel
2009 · 2h 44m
country: Germany
Upon learning that his days are numbered, a man and an old friend return to an old house that connects them by a dark secret. Along with three women and a mysterious old man, the group journeys into a horrifying abyss of debauchery and moral mayhem, leading to a fatal turn of events, during which the darkest human depths are revealed.


Kick the Cock
2008 · 16m
country: Italy
Kick the Cock is an old Dutch saying, meaning Peek in the Kitchen.


Macbeth
2001 · 2h 19m
country: Germany
This hard-edged postmodern production of Giuseppe Verdi's haunting masterpiece brings the story of Shakespeare's bloody tragedy to vivid life, characterized by spine-tingling atmospherics and a triumphant debut by American baritone Thomas Hampson in the title role. This Zurich Opera House production also features a mesmerizing turn by Paoletta Marrocu as the beautiful, power-hungry Lady Macbeth, while striking sets and costumes further enhance the duality of the main character whose rise and fall mirror the darkest impulses of man. Replete with supernatural mystery, sexual tension, and violent power plays, this timeless story remains gripping and chilling for today's audiences and boasts some of the most astonishing music of Verdi's legendary body of work.


My Brother Is an Only Child
2007 · 1h 48m
country: France
Accio and Manrico are siblings from a working-class family in 1960s Italy: older Manrico is handsome, charismatic, and loved by all, while younger Accio is sulky, hot-headed, and treats life as a battleground — much to his parents' chagrin. After the former is drawn into left-wing politics, Accio joins the fascists out of spite, but his flimsy beliefs are put to test when he falls for Manrico's like-minded girlfriend.


No Man's Land
2001 · 1h 38m
country: France
Two soldiers from opposite sides get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?


Scarlet Diva
2000 · 1h 31m
country: Italy
A young Italian actress embarks on a self-destructive spree of sex, drugs and other excess while doing some soul searching to find the path for redemption.


Hotel Courbet
2009 · 18m
country: Italy
The woman lets herself go so she can assuage her erotic affliction. The provocative intimacy, violated unseen, is worth more for the burglar than any of the things he has stolen...


The Final Inquiry
2007 · 1h 52m
country: Italy
In 35 A.D., a Roman tribune is sent to Palestine to investigate the death and possible resurrection of a certain Jesus from Nazareth.


Baaria
2009 · 2h 40m
country: France
In 1920s Bagheria, Giuseppe 'Peppino' Torrenuova works as a shepherd to financially help his poor family. Over the next fifty years, Giuseppe's life, as well as the life of the village, is observed. Giuseppe grows up, joins the Communist Party, marries a local girl, has children, and forges a political career for himself.


The Edge of Heaven
2007 · 2h 2m
country: Germany
The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.


The Apocalypse
2004 · 1h 33m
country: Czech Republic
The film is set in 90 AD and concerns Jesus Christ's last surviving disciple, John of Patmos, and his writings and visions from the Apocalypse of John. Emperor Domitian has declared himself to be God and ruler, over heaven and earth. The Christians do not recognize his divinity and face persecution, from the God Emperor. John has been imprisoned on, the island of Patmos, a Roman mining, penal colony, with many others. He writes out messages of his visions and sends the "Revelation of God", to the seven churches of Greek Asia Minor. The Christian church, in Ephesus, sends Irene to make sure John is alive and to confer with him in person. The movie depicts scenes from the Book of Revelation and links them to events happening to the church in Asia.


Don't Move
2004 · 2h 5m
country: Italy
While waiting for the brain surgery of his daughter Angela, victim of a motorcycle accident, the surgeon Timoteo recalls his torrid affair with and passion for Italia, a simple woman from slums in the periphery of the big city where he lives. The ghost of the beloved and sexual object of desire Italia chases him in his memories.


Karol: A Man Who Became Pope
2005 · 2h 35m
country: Poland
The life of the pope John-Paul II, from his youth as a writer, actor, and athlete in war-torn occupied Poland to his election as Pope at the age of 58.


Go Go Tales
2008 · 1h 41m
country: Italy
A financial struggle between owners of a go-go club threatens its future.


My Name Is Tanino
2003 · 1h 49m
country: Italy
During a sun-soaked Sicilian summer, aimless filmmaking undergrad and back-seat radical Tanino has a fling with Sally, a dreamy American tourist from an upper background. When summer ends, Sally flies back home, without ever reaching out. Clueless, a smitten Tanino decides to pay her a surprise visit under the pretense of returning a camera she left behind. But when he gets there, he quickly realizes the reality of America—and his relationship with Sally's—is far from the idealized version his small-town boy imagination conjured.


Love
2005 · 1h 30m
country: Serbia and Montenegro
In New York, an absurd coincidence links the lives of a Yugoslavian hitman, his ex-wife and her new partner, a policeman whose father was a criminal. His code name is "Uncle Vanya". He grew up in Bosnia, an orphan of both parents and, having never met them, he does not know whether he is a Serb, a Croat or a Muslim. A victim of his fate and his past in war-torn Bosnia, he has become a hitman. He would like to stop killing but he can't.


Bread and Tulips
2000 · 1h 54m
country: Belgium
An endearing light comedy about a woman who spontaneously becomes a resident of Venice after her family left her behind. While enjoying the wonderful people she meets she achieves a new life and the first time independent of her family.


La Bohème
2008 · 1h 55m
country: Germany
Giacomo Puccini's immortal opera, in a high budget feature-film version directed by Academy Award nominee Robert Dornhelm, stars opera's 'Golden Couple', Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko as the protagonists, Rodolfo and Mimi. The chemistry between them is electric, unrivalled in the theatre today. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko is not only beautiful but has a marvelous voice and technique; Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon, has a wonderful voice and an incredible charisma. The director not only wanted to remain steadfastly faithful to Puccini's design but also document two of the leading singers of the modern age rather than embarking on a 'trendy' contemporary re-creation.


First Love
2004 · 1h 40m
country: Italy
Vittorio is looking for a woman who matches his ideal. Through a classified ad he meets Sonia, a sweet, pleasant, intelligent girl. However, she weighs 125 pounds -- which according to Vittorio is way too much. A goldsmith by trade, Vittorio is obsessed with the desire to shape Sonia's body and mind as does a fire with gold. Almost imperceptibly Sonia becomes a passive participant and the relationship grows into a reciprocal masochistic game. When the two lovers isolate themselves in a country house in the Veneto hills, they dangerously lose touch with reality and the rest of the world.


The Son's Room
2001 · 1h 39m
country: Italy
A psychoanalyst and his family go through profound emotional trauma when their son dies in a scuba diving accident.


Golden Door
2006 · 1h 58m
country: France
The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
The 2000s ran on digital transition: DV cameras democratized production while CGI reached the point of photorealism. It's also when the fantasy epic and the modern superhero film established their commercial dominance.
Italian cinema runs from the neorealists working in bombed-out postwar streets to Fellini's spectacle, the Spaghetti Western, and the lurid giallo thrillers that shaped modern horror. Few national cinemas have exported this many distinct genres.