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


CentoVetrine
2001
country: Italy
The series tells the stories of some of the characters who work or are related to an imaginary shopping center Centovetrine, located in the center of Turin. There are many stories of love and passion, but also struggles for power and dynastic quarrels in the telefilm.


The Ladies' Paradise
2015
country: Italy
Follow Teresa Iorio, a young woman who leaves her rural Sicilian hometown for Milan to find work--and much more--at a newly opened department store: The Ladies' Paradise.


Father Matteo
2000
country: Italy
Don Matteo is a thoroughly ordinary Catholic priest with an extraordinary ability to read people and solve crimes. He’s a parish priest who never met an unjustly accused person he didn’t want to help.


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.


Supersex
2024
country: Italy
Inspired by true events, this is the story of how Rocco Siffredi escaped a humble life and emerged as the world's greatest porn star.


Police District
2000
country: Italy
The events of Police District unfold in the rooms of the 10th Tuscolano, a police station on the outskirts of Rome where current events intertwine with the private lives of the inspectors, officers and commissioners who, over the course of 11 intense seasons, have created one of the greatest successes on Italian TV.


Gomorrah
2014
country: Italy
Based on Robert Saviano's bestselling book, this gritty Italian crime drama paints a portrait of the brutal Neapolitan crime organisation the Camorra, as seen through the eyes of Ciro Di Marzo, the obedient and self- confident right-hand man of the clan's godfather, Pietro Savastano.


The Count of Monte Cristo
2025
country: Italy
Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.


SKAM Italia
2018
country: Italy
Millennials experience first love and discover their emerging identities in this teen drama told partly through texts, chats and social media posts.


My Brilliant Friend
2018
country: Italy
When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman immersed in a house full of books, turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their friendship.


Medici: Masters of Florence
2016
country: Italy
The story of the Medici family of Florence, their ascent from simple merchants to power brokers sparking an economic and cultural revolution. Along the way, they also accrue a long list of powerful enemies.


In Treatment
2013
country: Italy
No overview available


Doc
2020
country: Italy
When Doctor Andrea Fanti loses 12 years of memories from a brain injury, he finds himself adjusting to a world full of strangers.


The Art of Joy
2024
country: Italy
Born on the 1st of January 1900 in a poor family in rural Sicily, Modesta pursues happiness since her childhood without falling victim to the constraints of society. After a tragic event that takes her away from her family, Modesta is welcomed into a monastery, where she becomes the Mother Superior’s protégé thanks to her intelligence and stubbornness. Later, she arrives at the villa belonging to the Princess of Brandiforti, where she makes herself indispensable. This relentless process of emancipation goes along with a journey of personal growth and sexual awakening, which lead her to discover and claim the right to pleasure and happiness.


Sandokan
2025
country: Italy
Sandokan is a Malaysian pirate who, along with his friend Yanez and their crew, attacks the British forces from his island of Mompracem. During his adventures, he falls in love with Lady Marianna Guillonk, an English-Italian aristocrat.


The Squad
2000
country: Italy
One of the most enthralling crime series among Italian viewers: airing on Rai Tre from March 3, 2000, "La Squadra" offers a realistic overview of the world of crime through the cases investigated by the Sant'Andrea Police Station in Naples.


Mrs Playmen
2025
country: Italy
Betrayed by her husband, a woman must step up and run an erotic magazine that becomes a symbol of empowerment in '70s Rome. Inspired by true events.


Alta Infedeltà
2015
country: Italy
The episodes recount various love stories that can lead to infidelity and betrayal: each story is told from the perspective of the cheater, the person who was cheated on, and the lover. The episodes are accompanied by reenactments featuring actors and narrated by Perla Liberatori. The locations and events depicted are 100% real, though they are portrayed by actors. The stories feature various endings, including reconciliations, breakups, or career changes.


Anti-Mafia Squad
2009
country: Italy
Fighting a modern, fragmented and brutal Mafia, the Sicilian Anti-Mafia Squad seeks to crush the criminal network that holds a death grip on the region. Sophisticated surveillance helps, unless the enemy lies within.


The Sea Beyond
2020
country: Italy
Naples. Still an organized crime stronghold. For the inmates at the Juvenile Detention Centre, time and space are interrupted. Taken away from their families and friends, they now have the opportunity to understand who they have been, who they are, who they want to be.


Gomorrah: The Origins
2026
country: Italy
The series Gomorrah - The Origins explores Pietro Savastano's youth in the 1970s, in a Naples undergoing a transformation, poverty-stricken and plagued by cigarette smuggling. The story begins in 1977 with a very young Pietro, the son of no one, growing up as an adoptive brother in a family in the poorest part of Secondigliano. A street kid, he scrapes by as best he can, dreaming of a well-being that is still denied him. The story unfolds through Pietro's loss of innocence, along with his brothers and lifelong friends, their ambitions, and his first great love, which, like that of every teenager, will be wild and passionate. His encounter with Angelo, known as 'A Sirena,' the regent of Secondigliano, marks his entry into the world of crime. Through violence, alliances, and betrayals, Pietro discovers the price that life takes.


The Octopus
1984
country: Italy
An epic crime saga of power, money, violence and corruption. The mafia controls everything through local and international networks like an octopus, and anyone who tries to bring them down pays the ultimate price.


Rocco Schiavone
2016
country: Italy
Weed smoking, foulmouthed Rocco Schiavone is an offbeat Deputy Commissioner of the State Police. For disciplinary reasons he is transferred to the Alpine town of Aosta, far from his beloved Rome. The sophisticated but cranky Roman despises the mountains, the cold, and the provincial locals as much as he disdains his superiors and their petty rules. But he loves solving crimes.


ZeroZeroZero
2020
country: Italy
Based on the book of the same name by bestselling author Roberto Saviano, ZeroZeroZero is an unforgettable exploration of the inner workings of the global cocaine trade.


1993
2017
country: Italy
Rome, 30 April 1993. A crowd throws coins at Italian politician Bettino Craxi - as if the Civil War has begun. Be quick if you want a place in the new system. Now, it's every man for himself. 1993 is the last chance to set up the Second Republic. Everyone fights their own battles.


Jesus of Nazareth
1977
country: Italy
Dramatizes the Birth, Life, Ministry, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, largely according to the Holy Bible's New Testament Gospels.


Devils
2020
country: Italy
After being implicated in a deadly scandal, a trader at a leading London bank fights to clear his name, but instead uncovers an intercontinental conspiracy masterminded by powerful forces operating in the shadows.


The Law According to Lidia Poët
2023
country: Italy
In late 19th-century Turin, young Lidia Poët fights against everything and everyone to get what is rightfully hers: to be enrolled in the official register of lawyers; a profession, at the time, reserved exclusively for men. Nevertheless, nothing could stop her dream of becoming the first female lawyer in Italy.


The Young Pope
2016
country: Italy
Lenny Belardo, the youngest and first American Pope in the history of the Church, must establish his new papacy and navigate the power struggles of the closed, secretive Vatican.


Violet like the sea
2022
country: Italy
Viola Vitale, Miss Italy and fashion journalist, returns to Sicily to look for her father. She starts working for a digital news company and joins police inspector Francesco Demir in solving crime with the help of synesthesia.


Deceitful Love
2024
country: Italy
After turning 60, a wealthy woman suddenly falls in love with an attractive and much younger man, but her family raises doubts about his intentions.


The Leopard
2025
country: Italy
Amid the unification of 1860s Italy, a Sicilian prince grapples with the collision between his family's ancient privilege and revolutionary change.


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."


One Step from Heaven
2011
country: Italy
The investigations and adventures of the Forestry Corps of San Candido.


Baby
2018
country: Italy
Fed up with their families and classmates, two teen girls from a wealthy part of Rome are drawn to the city's underworld and start leading double lives.


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.


Romanzo Criminale: The Series
2008
country: Italy
Love, business, anxieties, friendships, feuds, and resentments paint the picture of the main story, that of a group of criminals who for nearly fifteen years, from 1977 to 1992, cherished an illusion: that of conquering Rome. The Lebanese, Freddo, Dandi, Patrizia, and Commissioner Scialoja are some of the characters inspired by the true story of the Magliana gang. As stated by Aldo Grasso, the first season of the series gives more space to the crime scene, that is, the criminal exploits of the Magliana gang, while the second season delves deeper into the "behind the scenes" of the crime: thus, the gang's repositioning after a key plot event, and the effects and questions this has provoked in the protagonists' consciences.


Christopher Columbus
1985
country: Italy
After his proposal to sail west to the East Indies is rejected by Portugal, Columbus overcomes court intrigue in Spain to gain support for his expedition.


Jams
2019
country: Italy
No overview available


Leonardo
2021
country: Italy
A fresh look at the life and legacy of the iconic artist Leonardo da Vinci, positing that he was a gay outsider who used his work as a way of hiding his true self. Each episode will examine one of da Vinci’s artworks for hidden clues about a tortured artist struggling for perfection.
Italian television's international profile rests largely on crime — organized-crime sagas rooted in specific cities and their histories, made with unusual documentary texture.
Television drama is where the medium made its case as film's equal, from the cable era's antihero epics to the current streaming wave. Long-form gives character change room to actually happen.