Public Service Announcement: Valentine’s Day is less than a week away! If you’re planning on spending a romantic night in with your significant other, then you’ll want to check out 10 of our favourite Italian romantic comedies.
1. In Guerra Per Amore
In Guerra Per Amore (At War With Love)
In Guerra Per Amore: Pierfrancesco Diliberto (Pif) stars in a love story set at the end of World War II. Arthur and Flora are in love but her father, in New York, has betrothed her to a Sicilian mafioso. Pif directs and stars in this funny/dramatic/romantic historically based story of love overcoming all.
2. Una Donna Per Amica
Una Donna Per Amica (A Woman As A Friend)
Una Donna Per Amica: Francesco (Fabio De Luigi) and Claudia (Laetitia Casta) are best friends. Francesco is an awkward and funny criminal lawyer and Claudia is a French-Italian vet, as exuberant and free-spirited as she is beautiful.
There are no secrets between them. They share everything, and have fun together like children. Claudia even has the keys to Francesco’s apartment, and comes and goes as she pleases!
But when Claudia meets Giovanni, a forest ranger who is completely taken with her and soon wins her love, Francesco finds himself forced to deal with unexpected discomfort and jealousy.
Soon, this begins to affect their relationship, forcing the question: can men and women really be just friends?
3. Quo Vado?
Quo Vado
Quo Vado? Checco’s (Checco Zalone) got it made, with a job that will (supposedly) be forever, a girlfriend that is at his beck and call, and a good old Italian super mom who does the same, because she adores her mammone (mamma’s boy).
Problems arise with a change in the political climate and government attempts to end bureaucracy, but Checco is determined not to give up his sure thing and he digs his heels in, DEEP. An official, La Dottoressa Sironi (played by Sonia Bergamasco) is assigned to transfer employees to undesirable locations in order to force them into quitting, but she’s met her match when Checco’s file lands on her desk.
She stews as Checco cheerfully finds the good in every transfer, and just when it looks like she can’t shake him up, Checco finds himself at the North Pole, wondering if he’s going to have to surrender. But wait, there’s a pretty colleague that he’s to work closely with, so problem solved. He’s found the good in the North Pole.
4. Pane e Tulipani
Pane e Tulipani (Bread and Tulips)
Pane e Tulipani: When Rosalba’s family forgets to appreciate her, and then forgets her at a highway rest stop, she decides enough is enough and she hitches a ride to Venice where she “imagines her life, and then she goes and lives it.”
The top-notch cast includes Licia Maglietta as Rosalba, Bruno Ganz as Fernando, Marina Massironi as the holistic massage therapist, and Giuseppe Battiston as the private detective Rosalba’s husband hires to find her and drag her back home when he notices there is nobody to iron his shirts.
5. Il Giorno In Più
Il Giorno in Più (An Extra Day)
Il Giorno In Più is based on a book written by Fabio Volo, who went on to star in this movie and write the screenplay. Volo plays, Giocomo, a 40-year-old serial dater who becomes infatuated with a woman he sees on the tram every day, Michela, played by Isabella Ragonese.
The film has witty, smart dialogue and chemistry between the protagonists as Giocomo throws caution to the wind and follows Michela, all the way to America.
6. Le Sedi Della Felicità
La Sedia Della Felicità (The Chair of Happiness)
Le Sedi Della Felicità: The last comedy from director Carlo Mazzacurati, La Sedia Della Felicità,is sweet, kooky, and oh yeah, that thing that a romcom is supposed to be, funny.
Mazzacurati, sadly, died last year at age 57 and didn’t live long enough to see the release of his film, but he left us with a little gem, a comedy that recalls the old American screwball comedies and does it in a modern way.
Valerio Mastandrea as Dino the tattoo artist, Isabella Ragonese as Bruna,the floundering spa owner, and Giuseppe Battiston as the priest go treasure hunting when the an old woman dies in prison and with her last breath tells Bruna a secret; there’s something valuable that nobody knows about hidden in a chair in her house.
7. Non Mi Può Giudicare
Non Mi Può Giudicare (Escort In Love)
Non Mi Può Giudicare: Paola Cortellesi and Raoul Bova are hot, hot, hot in this romantic comedy about a rich woman who loses everything and resorts to escorting to make ends meet.
8. Tutti I Santi Giorni
Tutti I Santi Giorni (Every Blessed Day)
Tutti I Santi Giorni: In Tutti i Santi Giorni Antonia (Thony) and Guido (Luca Marinelli) are an unlikely couple; He’s serious and brainy, she’s artistic and less stable, and their happy-go-lucky life together is marred only by their struggle to conceive a child. What makes this couple special is that they are real; they are believable, expressive and genuine, as a couple and you can’t help but root for them.
9. La Mafia Uccide Solo D’Estate
La Mafia Uccide Solo D’Estate (The Mafia Only Kills In The Summer)
La Mafia Uccide Solo D’Estate: In La Mafia Uccide Solo D’Estate young Arturo (Pif) grows up in a mafia-ridden Palermo, Sicily and tries very hard to get the girl, Flora (Cristiana Capotondi), one he’s loved since grade school.
10. Manuale D’Amore
Manuale D’Amore (Manual of Love)
Manuale D’Amore: In part one of the Manual of Love trilogy Giulia and Tommaso (Jasmine Trinca and Silvio Muccino) meet and fall in love when he insults her cat and then has to apologize. “I never kiss anyone by mistake,” she tells him.
