[4] Its cultural importance was considerable and influenced all subsequent avant-gardes, as well as some authors of narrative cinema; its echo expands to the dreamlike visions of some films by Alfred Hitchcock.

Its key figures were the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo.

[11] Most of the futuristic-themed films of this period have been lost, but critics cite Thaïs (1917) by Anton Giulio Bragaglia as one of the most influential, serving as the main inspiration for German Expressionist cinema in the following decade.

The film, built around a melodramatic and decadent story, actually reveals multiple artistic influences different from Marinett's futurism; the secessionist scenographies, the liberty furniture,[12] and the abstract and surreal moments contribute to create a strong formal syncretism.

The scenographer Enrico Prampolini, in Thaïs, used geometric shapes based on a strong black/white contrast: spiral, diamond, chess, symbolic figures (cats, masks spewing smoke).

Also noteworthy is Vita futurista (1916), by Arnaldo Ginna, is a sort of practical verification of the theses set out in the Manifesto: ironic and intentionally provocative, the film makes use of numerous special effects (hand-colored parts, color changes, eccentric shots, anti-naturalistic montage) to stimulate the emotional reactions of the viewer.

[13] Another lost film is Il re, le torri, gli alfieri by Ivo Illuminati, where the characters were dressed like chess figures and moved on a checkerboard floor.

[15] [16][17] Italian futurism did not produce works in the cinema that immediately lived up to their revolutionary aims, but the importance of the movement as a source of inspiration for all subsequent avant-gardes was enormous.

[20] Famed movie critic Pauline Kael stated that the director Dimitri Kirsanoff, in his silent experimental film Ménilmontant "developed a technique that suggests the movement known in painting as Futurism".