Italian films about unrequited love

From the bitter quest of the Queen of Longtrellis, to two mysterious sisters who provoke the passion of a king, to the King of Highhills obsessed with a giant Flea, these tales are inspired by the fairytales by Giambattista Basile.

Agnese has many men who woo her and live with her cousin Cesira, who has the opposite problem with men and wishes she would also have men woo her.

Lorenzo, Blue and Antonio have a lot in common: they are sixteen, attending the same class in the same school in a small town in the northeast, each have a family that loves them. And all three, though for different reasons, have come to be isolated from other peers. Their new friendship helps them to resist, until the mechanical attraction and fear the judgment of others do not grasp them unprepared.

A lonely city transplant, and a sheltered girl haunted by a lover’s promise, meet by chance on a canal bridge and begin a tentative romance that quickly entangles them in a web of longing and self-delusion.

An unemployed young man finds his life turned upside down when he falls in love with a beautiful actress.

When Deborah's ex-husband, a popular neomelodic singer, loses his life in a stage dive, Deborah worries for her eleven-year-old son, Ciro, who is exhibiting signs of depression. Searching for a solution, Deborah takes Ciro to see Tommaso, a shy child psychologist. During the course of their visits, Ciro confesses that it's not his father's death that has got him down, it's his love for his classmate, the beautiful Ludovica. The two make a deal: Tomasso will help Ciro to win the affections of Ludovica, while Ciro gives Tomasso a hand at having a chance with his mother.

An aspiring actor discovers that his spacious new apartment comes complete with eight friendly ghosts.

A luminously beautiful biopic of the celebrated eighteenth-century Italian poet, essayist and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi, who created immortal verse whilst struggling with a debilitating illness.

When an African dictator jails her husband, Shandurai goes into exile in Italy, studying medicine and keeping house for Mr. Kinsky, an eccentric English pianist and composer. She lives in one room of his Roman palazzo. He besieges her with flowers, gifts, and music, declaring passionately that he loves her, would go to Africa with her, would do anything for her. "What do you know of Africa?," she asks, then, in anguish, shouts, "Get my husband out of jail!" The rest of the film plays out the implications of this scene and leaves Shandurai with a choice.

Clemente Russo portrays himself in the story of a promising boxer who grew up in the Neapolitan mob heartland.

Serena Bruno is an architect who studied and got several masters in different countries of the world but she decides to go back to Italy so she can live and work there. She will soon find out that her native country is not as open minded and she will struggle to find a job that she truly loves and is passionate about. Along the way she will meet Francesco a gay man who will help and support her throughout her journey.

Irene, nicknamed 'Miele', has devote herself to people looking for help, and tries to alleviate their suffering even when they make extreme decisions. One day she has to cope with Grimaldi and his invisible malaise.

Second part of the film "Sorry if I love you". Alex (Raoul Bova) and Niki (Michela Quattrociocche) are more in love than ever. They have just returned from the lighthouse on the island Blu where they have lived unforgettable days. Niki returns to see his friends, but a number of important changes in their lives will test the friendship of the girls. Alex also resume life with his old friends. All of them, Flavio, Enrico and Pietro, are no longer serene and safe husbands due to certain difficulties that have compromised their marriages.

After growing up in Switzerland, 13-year-old Marta returns to a city in southern Italy with her mother and older sister. Independent and inquisitive, she joins a catechism class at a local church. However, the games and religious pop songs she encounters there do not nearly satisfy her interest in faith. Struggling to find her place, Marta pushes the boundaries of the class, the priest, and the church.

Taking place in 1955 in Italy, “Castello Cavalcanti” follows Jason Schwartzman as race car driver Jed Cavalcanti who suffers a mishap during the Molte Miglia rally and finds himself in a small town with a few familial surprises.

Amanzio Rastelli appointed several of his relations to managerial positions in his firm. They decided to think internationally and now business is heavily in debt. Luckily for the Rastellis, Bolta the accountant uses all the tricks of his art to cook the books, but catastrophe awaits.

Has been an year since Pietro Zinni's gang got caught in the Sopox production laboratory and each of them locked up in different jails. From Regina Coeli jail, Pietro keep warning the authorities a fool syntetized nerve gas and he is ready to make a killing, but no one takes him seriously.

Summer 1943, Piedmont, Italy. Milton loves Fulvia who plays with his love: she only likes the depth of his thought and the letters he writes to her. One year later, Milton has joined the Resistance and fights beside other partisans. He learns during a conversation that Fulvia was secretly in love with his best friend Giorgio, a partisan like him. Milton decides to go find Giorgio in the Langhe region of Italy with all its misty hills...But Giorgio has just been arrested by the Fascists.

Prime numbers are divisible only by one and themselves. These numbers are solitary and incomprehensible to others. Alice and Mattia are both "prime", both haunted by the tragedies that have marked them in childhood: a skiing accident for Alice which has caused a defect in her leg, and the loss of his twin sister for Matthew.

Three gorgeous seamstresses meet on the historic steps of the Piazza de Spagna in Rome to discuss one another's love lives.

Corrupt and sleazy entrepreneur Cetto La Qualunque comes back to Italy and "jumps into politics" lest his law-abiding opponent, Giovanni De Santis, is elected as mayor.

An ambitious soccer referee ends up handling a crucial match between two small Sardinian teams

A movie about Domenico Modugno, famous singer.

Years after declaring her eternal virginity and opting to live life as a man in the mountains of Albania, Hana looks to return to living as a woman as she settles into a new existence in modern-day Milan.

A chronicle biopic of the 22-year career of soccer star Roberto Baggio, including depictions of his difficult debut as a player, his deep rifts with some of his coaches, his triumph over injuries and personal discovery of Buddism.

In the Campania countryside, Pasquale Cardinale, an elder ranger, spends his days between alcohol and video poker. To settle the debts he organizes a scam of 200 white pure goldfinches, replacing them with common ones, but it will not end as expected.

Womanizer father teaches clumsy son the decalogue of seduction: ten foolproof rules to make any woman fall in love. But the results will be not what expected.

A 22 year-old Bangladeshi-Italian Muslim boy meets a beautiful, exciting Italian girl who makes him re-analyze his beliefs and culture.

A bohemian artist travels from London to Italy with his estranged son to sell the house they inherited from his late wife.

Eric Lazard is a heartbroken former college football star who gets involved in a dangerous Florentine sport and a local woman, Stephanie, while visiting his cousin Anna, who lives in Italy and teaches the Italian language to foreigners.

A small Sicilian town elects a new, honest major but quickly learns that playing by the rules is not as easy as it seems

David's life is changed forever after his meeting with Marcello, a clever con man.

Elio Perlman is spending the summer with his family at their vacation home in Lombardy, Italy. When his father hires a handsome doctoral student, the curious 17-year-old finds himself developing a growing attraction to the young man.

Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, Caesar Must Die (Cesare Deve Morire), the scripted documentary shows inmates at a prison in Rome rehearsing for a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Gianni is sixty. He is retired but has not become lazy for all that. In fact he is a helpful fellow who gives a hand to all those who need one: shopping for his wife, walking the pretty neighbor's dog, and so on. Everybody likes Gianni, but is it for the right reasons? Doesn't his wife profit by the situation (she still works so it is only logical that Gianni do all the chores)? Isn't he subject to the excruciating whims of his rich mother?... Sure, everybody LIKES Gianni, but who LOVES him? Agreed, being kind to them, he is the ladies pet, but he does not attract them anymore. That is why, when his macho lawyer friend Alfonso blames him for not having young mistresses "like every other senior Italian male", Gianni, who is beginning to ask himself questions about what it is like to become old, starts chasing dames.

Beatrice is a blabbermouth and a so-called billionaire countess who likes to believe she’s in intimacy with world leaders. Donatella is a young quiet tattooed woman, locked in her own mystery. They are both patients of a mental institution and subject to custodial measures.

A look at the controversial riot cops unit, told through the stories of three veteran cops and a young recruit.

The story is based on 2014 Mille Miglia and encompasses eighty-five years of the race, from early 1930s to the present day, mixing life, memories, mystery and excitement of its characters who are brought together by the love for cars and separated by long-time secrets. They are fascinated by the presence and the story of a fabulous OM 665 Superba - a car built in Brescia, who won the first edition in 1927 - taken to pieces and forgotten for so many years.

A retired lawyer becomes friends with a young wife who has just moved in the adjacent apartment with her family.

Johan and Marianne are married and seem to have it all. Their happiness, however, is a façade for a troubled relationship, which becomes even rockier when Johan admits that he's having an affair. Before long, the spouses separate and move towards finalizing their divorce, but they make attempts at reconciling. Even as they pursue other relationships, Johan and Marianne realize that they have a significant bond, but also many issues that hinder that connection.

In a Naples suspended between magic and superstition, madness and rationality, a mystery envelops the existence of Adriana (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), overwhelmed by a sudden love and a violent crime.

Amin, an aspiring screenwriter living in Paris, returns home for the summer, to a fishing village in the South of France. It is a time of reconnecting with his family and his childhood friends. Together with his cousin Tony and his best friend Ophélie, he spends his time between the Tunisian restaurant run by his parents, the local bars and the beaches frequented by girls on holiday. Enchanted by the many female characters who surround him, Amin remains in awe of these summer sirens while his dionysiac cousin throws himself into their carnal delights with euphoria. Armed with his camera and guided by the bright simmer light of the Mediterranean coast, Amin pursues his philosophical quest while gathering inspiration for his screenplays. When it comes to love, only Mektoub (‘destiny' in Arabic) can decide.

In a small mountain village lives a man with a challenging name, Giuseppe Garibaldi (one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland"), but everybody call him with the nickname Peppino. Love fishing, the company of friends, the library where he works as a precarious employee. He is an optimistic person even if his child accuse him of being a wannabe. One day, due to a mess of politicians, an amazing thing happens: Peppino is mistakenly elected President of the Italian Republic. Pulled out from his quiet life, is to play a role for which he knows he is obviously inappropriate, but his common sense and his instinctive gestures are incredibly effective, except for the etiquette, for which he is in trouble. The inflexible and fascinating Deputy Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Janis Clementi, is anxious to no avail in an attempt to regulate the unpredictable actions of the President...

A filmmaker recalls his childhood, when he fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist.

In this live-action adaptation of the beloved fairytale, old woodcarver Geppetto fashions a wooden puppet, Pinocchio, who magically comes to life. Pinocchio longs for adventure and is easily led astray, encountering magical beasts, fantastical spectacles, while making friends and foes along his journey. However, his dream is to become a real boy, which can only come true if he finally changes his ways.

Seminary student Michael Kovak (Colin O'Donoghue) reluctantly attends exorcism school at the Vatican. While he’s in Rome, Michael meets an unorthodox priest, Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins), who introduces him to the darker side of his faith, uncovering the devil’s reach even to one of the holiest places on Earth.

Purehearted teen Lazzaro is content living as a sharecropper in rural Italy, but an unlikely friendship with the marquise’s son will change his world.

The elections are approaching and the largest opposition party in the country do not look good. Its leader, Enrico Oliveri can not stand the pressure and disappears. Fearing a scandal, the eminence grise of the party had brought into play the twin brother of the politician. Even if looks like two drops of water with his brother Giovanni may have a different personality. His ideas are innovative and direct approach to get the party in the polls ...

Italy, 1990. On the night when Italy's national football team is eliminated from the World Cup by Argentina on penalty kicks, a well-known film producer is found dead in the Tiber River. The main suspects for the murder are three young aspiring screenwriters, hauled in front of the Carabinieri to tell their version of what happened.

Geremia, an aging tailor/money lender, is a repulsive, mean, stingy man who lives alone in his shabby house with his scornful, bedridden mother. He has a morbid, obsessive relationship with money and he uses it to insinuate himself into other people's affairs, pretending to be the "family friend". One day he is asked by a man to lend him money for the wedding of Rosalba, his daughter. Geremia falls in love at first sight with the bewitching creature and and soon indulges in a "beauty and the beast" relationship...