Many directors, througthout the history of cinema, chose Italian locations where to shoot their movies and major cities have been among the favored ones, with Rome, Milan, Venice, Naples, and Turin appearing in over two thousand movies.
The most loved one is certainly Rome, which has hosted the crews of no less than 1,511 movies, including some timeless masterpieces like Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita‘ – with the world-famous scene of Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni wadding into Trevi Fountain – and Wyler ‘Roman Holiday’ – the movie thanks to which Audrey Hepburn became famous -, as well as the more recent ‘The Great Beauty’ by Sorrentino – which begins with the dramatic opening scene on the Janiculum Hill.
Milan follows Rome with ‘only’ 352 movies filmed there. Among them, there are De Sica’s ‘Miracle in Milan‘ and the neorealist masterpiece ‘Rocco and his brothers‘ by Visconti. Also, Oscar-winning director Salvatores set in Milan his ‘Happy Family’, which includes some pretty images of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and the Duomo, nice city center and Navigli shots, and a scene filmed in Sarpi neighborhood (the Chinatown of the Lombard capital).
Venice, the Floating City, thanks to its uniqueness, has been featured in 287 movies. Between Visconti’s ‘Death in Venice‘ and the upcoming ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home‘ by Watts, it has been the set for movies such us Spielberg’s ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade‘ – in which the facade of the San Barnaba Church ‘interprets’ the entrance of an imaginary bookshop – and ‘Casino Royale‘ of the James Bond saga – it is right in the cloister of the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello that the special agent engages in shooting scene.