A new era took place at the end of World War II with the birth of the influential Italian neorealist movement, reaching a vast consensus of audiences and critics throughout the post-war period,[11] and which launched the directorial careers of Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio De Sica.

[23] The Lumière brothers commenced public screenings in Italy in 1896 starting in March, in Rome and Milan; in April in Naples, Salerno and Bari; in June in Livorno; in August in Bergamo, Bologna and Ravenna; in October in Ancona;[24] and in December in Turin, Pescara and Reggio Calabria.

[32] This innovative form of spectacle ran out, in a short time, a number of optical attractions such as magic lanterns, cinematographers, stereoscopes, panoramas and dioramas that had fueled the European imagination and favoured the circulation of a common market for images.

[39] Popular early Italian actors included Emilio Ghione, Alberto Collo, Bartolomeo Pagano, Amleto Novelli, Lyda Borelli, Ida Carloni Talli, Lidia Quaranta and Maria Jacobini.

Films such as Fior di male (1914), by Carmine Gallone, Il fuoco (1915), by Giovanni Pastrone, Rapsodia satanica (1917), by Nino Oxilia and Cenere (1917), by Febo Mari, changed the national costume, imposing canons of beauty, role models and objects of desire.

[57] With the end of World War I, Italian cinema went through a period of crisis due to many factors such as production disorganization, increased costs, technological backwardness, loss of foreign markets and inability to cope with international competition, in particular with that of Hollywood.

[60] A particular genre is that of a realist setting, due to the work of the first female director of Italian cinema, Elvira Notari, who directs numerous films influenced by popular theatre and taken from famous dramas, Neapolitan songs, appendix novels or inspired by facts of chronicle.

[63] While not comparable to the best results of international cinema of the period, the works of Camerini and Blasetti testify to a generational transition between Italian directors and intellectuals, and above all an emancipation from literary models and an approach to the tastes of the public.

The anti-pacifist controversy that accompanies colonial enterprises is also evident in Lo squadrone bianco (1936) by Augusto Genina, which combines propaganda rhetoric with notable battle sequences shot in the Italian Tripolitania desert.

Among the most representative we find Bengasi (1942) by Genina, Gente dell'aria (1943) by Esodo Pratelli, The Three Pilots (1942) by Mario Mattoli (based on a screenplay by Vittorio Mussolini), Il treno crociato (1943) by Carlo Campogalliani, Harlem (1943) by Carmine Gallone and Men of the Mountain (1943) by Aldo Vergano under the supervision of Blasetti.

Calligrafismo is in sharp contrast to Telefoni Bianchi-American style comedies and is rather artistic, highly formalistic, expressive in complexity and deals mainly with contemporary literary material,[92] above all the pieces of Italian realism from authors like Corrado Alvaro, Ennio Flaiano, Emilio Cecchi, Francesco Pasinetti, Vitaliano Brancati, Mario Bonfantini and Umberto Barbaro.

The internal conflicts of the characters and the scenographic richness are also recurrent in the first films by Alberto Lattuada (Giacomo the Idealist, 1943) and Renato Castellani (A Pistol Shot, 1942), dominated by a sense of moral and cultural decay that seems to anticipate the end of the war.

Also interesting are the contributions of the painter and set designer Emanuele Luzzati who, after some valuable short films, made in 1976 one of the masterpieces of Italian animation: Il flauto magico ("The Magic Flute"), based on the homonymous opera by Mozart.

In 2010, the first Italian animated film in 3D technology was made, directed by Iginio Straffi, entitled Winx Club 3D: Magical Adventure, based on the homonymous series; in the meantime Enzo D'Alò returns to theatres, presenting his Pinocchio (2012).

Although Umberto D. is considered the end of the neorealist period, subsequent works turned toward lighter, sweetened and mildly optimistic atmospheres, more coherent with the improving conditions of Italy just before the economic boom; this genre became known as pink neorealism.

[112] Notable films of pink neorealism, which combine popular comedy and realist motifs, are Pane, amore e fantasia (1953) by Luigi Comencini and Poveri ma belli (1957) by Dino Risi, both works are in perfect harmony with the evolution of the Italian costume.

Similarly, stories of daily life told with gentle irony (without losing sight of the social fabric) can be found in the work of the Milanese Luciano Emmer, whose films Sunday in August (1950), Three Girls from Rome (1952) and High School (1954), are the best-known examples.

[117][118][119] Rather than a specific genre, the term indicates a period (approximately from the late 1950s to the early 1970s) in which the Italian film industry was producing many successful comedies, with some common traits like satire of manners, farcical and grotesque overtones, a strong focus on "spicy" social issues of the period (like sexual matters, divorce, contraception, marriage of the clergy, the economic rise of the country and its various consequences, the traditional religious influence of the Catholic Church) and a prevailing middle-class setting, often characterized by a substantial background of sadness and social criticism that diluted the comic contents.

Monicelli's works include La grande guerra (The Great War), I compagni (The Organizer), L'armata Brancaleone, Vogliamo i colonnelli (We Want the Colonels), Romanzo popolare (Come Home and Meet My Wife) and the Amici miei (My Friends) series.

His personal story (a prince born in the poorest rione (section of the city) of Naples), his unique twisted face, his special mimic expressions and his gestures created an inimitable personage and made him one of the most beloved Italians of the 1960s.

[151] Giallo films are generally characterized as gruesome murder-mystery thrillers that combine the suspense elements of detective fiction with scenes of shocking horror, featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camerawork and often jarring musical arrangements.

In 1974, he directed his best-known film, We All Loved Each Other So Much, which traces 30 years of Italian history through the stories of three friends: the lawyer Gianni Perego (Vittorio Gassman), the porter Antonio (Nino Manfredi) and the intellectual Nicola (Stefano Satta Flores).

[192] The effect of this industrial contraction sanctions the total disappearance of Italian genre cinema in the middle of the decade, as it was no longer suitable to compete with the contemporary big Hollywood blockbusters (mainly due to the enormous budget differences available), with its directors and actors who therefore almost entirely switch to television film.

[200][201] They Call Me Jeeg, a 2016 critically acclaimed superhero film directed by Gabriele Mainetti and starring Claudio Santamaria, won many awards, such as eight David di Donatello, two Nastro d'Argento, and a Globo d'oro.

Call Me by Your Name (2017), the final installment in Luca Guadagnino's thematic Desire trilogy, following I Am Love (2009) and A Bigger Splash (2015), received widespread acclaim and numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the nomination for Best Picture in 2018.

[199] Successful 2020s Italian films include: The Life Ahead by Edoardo Ponti, Hidden Away by Giorgio Diritti, Bad Tales by Damiano and Fabio D'Innocenzo, The Predators by Pietro Castellitto, Padrenostro by Claudio Noce, Notturno by Gianfranco Rosi, The King of Laughter by Mario Martone, A Chiara by Jonas Carpignano, Freaks Out by Gabriele Mainetti, The Hand of God by Paolo Sorrentino, Nostalgia by Mario Martone, Dry by Paolo Giordano, The Hanging Sun by Francesco Carrozzini, Bones and All by Luca Guadagnino, L'immensità by Emanuele Crialese and Robbing Mussolini by Renato De Maria.

The award for Best Original Score was won by Nino Rota for The Godfather Part II; Giorgio Moroder for Midnight Express; Nicola Piovani for Life is Beautiful; Dario Marianelli for Atonement; and Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight.

The Italian winners at the Academy Award for Best Production Design are Dario Simoni for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago; Elio Altramura and Gianni Quaranta for A Room with a View; Bruno Cesari, Osvaldo Desideri and Ferdinando Scarfiotti for The Last Emperor; Luciana Arrighi for Howards End; and Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo for The Aviator, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Hugo.

The winners at the Academy Award for Best Cinematography are: Tony Gaudio for Anthony Adverse; Pasqualino De Santis for Romeo and Juliet; Vittorio Storaro for Apocalypse Now, Reds and The Last Emperor; and Mauro Fiore for Avatar.

The winners at the Academy Award for Best Costume Design are Piero Gherardi for La dolce vita and 8½; Vittorio Nino Novarese for Cleopatra and Cromwell; Danilo Donati for The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and Fellini's Casanova; Franca Squarciapino for Cyrano de Bergerac; Gabriella Pescucci for The Age of Innocence; and Milena Canonero for Barry Lyndon, Chariots of Fire, Marie Antoinette and The Grand Budapest Hotel.