With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is the largest film studio in Europe,[1] and is considered the hub of Italian cinema.

The studios were constructed during the Fascist era as part of a plan to revive the Italian film industry and to compete with Hollywood.

[2] Filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Mel Gibson and Luca Guadagnino have worked at Cinecittà.

[7] During World War II it became a German army barracks and was stripped of all electrical equipment with its sound stages smashed and gutted.

Cinecittà, described as Hollywood on the Tiber, was the location for several large American film productions, like Roman Holiday (1953), Beat the Devil (1953), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Ben-Hur (1959), and some low-budget action pictures starring Lex Barker.

Due to the Gulf War and mounting tensions in Yugoslavia, RAI decided to move the contest from Sanremo to Rome which was perceived to be more secure.

[16] In July 2012, another fire damaged Teatro 5, the vast studio where Fellini filmed La Dolce Vita[17] and Satyricon (1969).

[15][18] A third fire in August 2022 destroyed part of a partially dismantled set depicting Renaissance-era Florence and disrupted filming of the sequel to The Old Guard.

Visitors enter Cinecittà World through the jaws of the Temple of Moloch, seen in Cabiria, a silent movie filmed in Turin in 1914.