Watching TV series is one of the tips I give most often to my students. A good show gives you hours of real Italian: everyday conversations, slang, accents, humor and a peek into how Italians actually live. And when you’re hooked on the story, you keep listening even when it gets hard.
Here are 37 Italian shows you can find on Netflix, including the newest releases,, from crime dramas and teen series to comedies and historical sagas, with my notes on which ones are easier to follow and which ones are full of dialect.
In short
- Easier to follow (mostly standard Italian): Di4ri, Odio il Natale, Blanca, Non mentire, Cuori, Guida astrologica per cuori infranti
- More challenging (dialect and slang): Mare Fuori (Neapolitan), Suburra and Suburra Aeterna (Roman), Strappare lungo i bordi, Brigantes
- Shot in English (watch them dubbed in Italian): The Medici, The Name of the Rose
- Newest: Il Gattopardo, Il Mostro, Mrs Playmen, Motorvalley
- Netflix catalogs change from country to country, so some titles may not be available where you live.
How to learn Italian with Netflix
- Set the audio to Italian and start with English subtitles if you’re a beginner.
- When you feel ready, switch to Italian subtitles. Reading and listening at the same time is a huge step forward.
- Rewatch a short scene you liked and pause to write down two or three useful expressions.
- Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything. Follow the story and let your ear get used to the rhythm of Italian.
New Italian shows on Netflix
Netflix keeps adding new Italian series, so I’ve added some of the most talked-about recent ones. Here they are first, followed by my original list.
Il Gattopardo
Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 2025) is a lavish historical drama based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel. It’s set in Sicily in the 1860s, during the Risorgimento, and follows the aristocratic family of Prince Fabrizio Salina as the old world collapses around them. As a Sicilian, I couldn’t leave it out!
Your Italian: the language is elegant and sometimes old-fashioned, perfect for advanced learners who love history and literature.
Il Mostro
Il Mostro (The Monster of Florence, 2025) is a true crime miniseries about the hunt for the serial killer who targeted young couples in the countryside around Florence between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s. The case has never been solved.
Your Italian: dark and intense, with Tuscan settings and a lot of investigative vocabulary.
Brigantes
Brigantes (Brigands: The Quest for Gold, 2024) is an action adventure set in southern Italy in the 19th century, right after Italian unification. A young woman joins a band of brigands on a dangerous hunt for treasure.
Your Italian: expect strong southern accents and some dialect: a good challenge for upper-intermediate learners.
Mrs Playmen
Mrs Playmen (2025) tells the story of a woman in 1970s Rome who, after being betrayed and left by her husband, takes over an erotic magazine and turns it into a symbol of freedom and women’s rights in a very conservative Italy.
Motorvalley
Motorvalley (2025) is a drama set in the world of car racing in the Italian Motor Valley, the area around Modena and Bologna famous for Ferrari, Lamborghini and Ducati. A young heiress hires a driver and a coach to compete in the Italian Gran Turismo championship.
Inganno
Inganno (Deceitful Love, 2024) is a romantic thriller about a wealthy woman in her sixties who falls in love with a much younger man. Her family is convinced he’s only after her money. Is it love or a scam?
Your Italian: modern, standard Italian, easy to follow for intermediate learners.
Di4ri
Di4ri (2022) is a teen series about a group of middle school students, between school days, first crushes, friendships and rivalries.
Your Italian: simple, everyday Italian spoken by young people: one of the easiest shows on this list.
Odio il Natale
Odio il Natale (I Hate Christmas, 2022) is a light romantic comedy. Gianna, a single nurse, lies to her family about having a boyfriend and now has to find one before Christmas. Perfect for the holidays!
Your Italian: clear, contemporary Italian with lots of everyday expressions about love and family.
Luna Park
Luna Park (2021) is set in Rome in the early 1960s, the years of the economic boom. Two young women from very different worlds discover they are connected by a family secret, while a traveling fair arrives in the city.
Strappare lungo i bordi
Strappare lungo i bordi (Tear Along the Dotted Line, 2021) is an animated series by the cartoonist Zerocalcare. Funny, honest and moving, it follows Zero and his friends from Rome as they deal with growing up, love and regret. The second series, Questo mondo non mi renderà cattivo, came out in 2023.
Your Italian: very fast and full of Roman slang. Watch it with Italian subtitles, even Italians do!
More Italian shows on Netflix
Storia della mia famiglia
Fausto lives in Rome with his two children, Libero and Ercole, from his past relationship with Sarah. Battling a terminal illness caused by cancer, he spends his final days searching for a secure future for his children, determined not to leave them in their mother’s care. Upon learning of his worsening condition, his mother, Lucia, who runs a hair salon in Naples, returns to Rome to be by his side. Meanwhile, Fausto works to build both an emotional and financial support network to ensure his children’s stability. He enlists the help of his mother, his brother Valerio, and his friends Demetrio and Maria, all while cherishing his remaining time with Libero and Ercole.
La Legge di Lidia Poët
The series takes place in Turin on November 9, 1883. A sentence by the Court of Appeal declares Lidia Poët’s registration with the Bar Association invalid, preventing her from practicing law solely because she is a woman. Despite being penniless, Lidia is full of determination and secures a job at her brother Enrico’s law firm while working on an appeal to overturn the court’s decision.
ACAB: La Serie
During a night of clashes in Val di Susa, Inspector Pietro Fura is seriously injured by an improvised explosive device, triggering a violent reaction from his squad against the NO TAV protesters. Forced to leave the police force, he is replaced by Michele Nobili, a former commander disliked by his colleagues for testifying against other officers in a trial over violence against a detainee. When one of the protesters falls into a coma, a prosecutor is sent from Turin to investigate the events, while the squad denies any involvement and faces increasing pressure from the interrogations. Tensions rise, putting the officers’ loyalty and personal struggles to the test.
Adorazione
When a sixteen-year-old girl vanishes without a trace, the hidden secrets of a small community in Sabaudia begin to surface, as her family and friends try to piece together her last known movements before she disappeared.
Il Clandestino
Luca Travaglia, formerly the chief inspector of the counter-terrorism unit, left the police force after a brutal attack claimed the life of his partner. After moving to Milan, he started working as a nightclub bouncer, trying to numb his pain.
Summertime
Summer and Alessandro have contrasting lifestyles. Summer, introverted and uninterested in summer, prefers to work rather than relax after school. Her mother is a singer and often away. Summer finds comfort in her friends Sofia and Edoardo. As Summer grows closer to Alessandro, Sofia bonds with Dario, Alessandro’s best friend, who shares her passion for motorsports. Alessandro, a motorcycle racer from Rome, is in constant conflict with his father and leaves for Spain to pursue his career with a rival team. His mother, Laura, manages a hotel on the Romagna Riviera. Alessandro falls in love with Summer, but their relationship faces challenges from distance, the carefree summer spirit, and their youth, all set to a soundtrack of summer hits.
Tutto Chiede Salvezza
The series tells the story of Daniele Cenni, a young man who finds himself in a Psychiatric Diagnosis and Treatment Unit (SPDC) against his will, and the week he spends there after being subjected to a compulsory health treatment (TSO).
Suburra Aeterna
In 2011, in Rome, Amedeo Cinaglia, after leaving politics, took over Samurai’s position and now manages the criminal affairs of the capital alongside Ferdinando Badali, Adelaide Anacleti, Angelica Sale, and Nadia Gravone. Meanwhile, Alberto Anacleti, known as “Spadino,” is forced to return home to protect his family from a new threat: the revenge of the Luciani brothers, whose parents were killed by the Anacleti family years earlier.
Curon
Anna Raina, a woman from Milan, returns after 17 years to Curon, a small mountain village with mysterious legends about the lake. She moves there with her teenage twins, Mauro and Daria, despite her grandfather Thomas’s attempts to stop her. The family settles in her grandfather’s eerie hotel. As the twins adjust to the new place, Anna mysteriously disappears. While trying to find her, the twins uncover the village’s secrets and must confront a dark family legacy.
Zero
Omar is a second-generation Italian young man of Senegalese descent living in a peripheral area of Milan. He is so shy that he feels almost invisible, but this trait turns into an extraordinary superpower: he becomes truly invisible when overwhelmed by strong emotions. His story intertwines with that of other young people in his neighborhood, the Barrio, who, like him, want to protect their home and the area they grew up in from the threat of urban development.
Non mentire
Non mentire is a TV series that originally aired in Italy and is now available on Netflix. The story revolves around a school teacher who is asked out by a charming and respected surgeon. After their first date, they have conflicting stories about what happened. The teacher claims to have been raped, while the surgeon insists it’s not true.
The series is a dramatic thriller. It’s excellent for intermediate and advanced Italian language learners because the language used is standard Italian without strong regional influences or dialects.
Un medico in famiglia
Un medico in famiglia is an Italian TV show from the 90s and one of the longest-running Italian television series. The series follows the Martini family, initially composed of a widowed doctor with three children and his father, as they move to Poggio Fiorito where the doctor works in an experimental healthcare facility. The series was hugely popular, especially in its first six seasons, and has become a cult phenomenon and one of the most popular series in Italy.
Viola come il mare
Viola come il mare is an Italian TV show from 2022 set in Sicily, which follows the life of Viola, who after several years of working in the fashion industry in Paris, moves back to Palermo, her hometown, to search for the father she never knew. She starts working as a crime journalist for a web editorial and there she meets the chief inspector of police, Francesco Demir, a man with great investigative talent but with little trust in human nature. The two work together on homicide cases, with Viola as the journalist and Francesco as the police officer. The show is a mix of drama and romance.
Mare Fuori
Mare Fuori is possibly the most popular Italian TV show on Netflix in 2023. However, it’s worth noting that the show is mostly shot in Neapolitan dialect and many Italians watch it with Italian subtitles (yes, it’s common in Italy). While it may not be the best option for practicing Italian listening skills, I still highly recommend it because it’s one of the greatest Italian productions of recent years. If you’re advanced in Italian, you could watch it with Italian subtitles. Otherwise, English subtitles are available and you could use the show’s storyline as content for your Italian speaking class.
The series follows the story of a group of teenagers who find themselves in the Minor Offenders Institute in Naples. In this hostile and freedomless environment, the young inmates strive to find their place in the world. While some have unintentionally made mistakes, others have acted with premeditation, but all share the common experience of having been deprived of their freedom. Perched on the sea, the institute is a symbol of hope and freedom that seems out of reach for these young inmates. Through their stories, the series explores the boundaries between good and evil, the challenges of growing up in a hostile environment, and the search for one’s true identity.
Cuori
Cuori is an Italian TV series from 2022 set in the 1960s, which follows the story of three heart surgeons working at a hospital in Turin, Northern Italy. The plot revolves around the arrival of Delia, a brilliant heart surgeon who joins the team and finds herself working with Alberto, her old flame and best friend of her husband Cesare, the head of the cardiology department. The show develops through a mix of drama, emotions, and comedic moments. The series was broadcast on television in Italy and is now available on Netflix.
Guida Astrologica per Cuori Infranti
Based on the best-selling books by Silvia Zucca (which I recommend for advanced students), Guida astrologica per cuori infranti explores friendship, passion, work, weird meetings, and tragicomic occurrences through Alice Bassi’s eyes. Alice, who is in her early thirties and single (by choice), works as a production assistant for a tiny television network. With few professional prospects, she is looking for genuine love and work fulfillment.
FedeltÃ
Fedeltà (Fidelity) is a Netflix Italian miniseries loosely based on Marco Missiroli’s best-selling novel of the same name, which is also available in English translation. The drama tackles the themes of desire and betrayal, as well as the consequences of both, via the story of a couple who live and work in Milan.
Incastrati
Incastrati (Framed! A Sicilian Murder Mystery) is a 2022 Italian television series starring the popular Italian comedians Ficarra e Picone.
The show follows the adventures of Valentino and Salvatore, two unlucky TV technicians who happen to be at the scene of a crime by chance. To avoid being suspected, they clean up the scene and leave it undisturbed, using their knowledge of crime TV shows. Naturally, this will result in a series of (hilarious) misadventures in their lives.
As a Sicilian, I loved this series because it sends important messages of criticism to Italian and Sicilian society behind the lightheartedness of the comedy.
Blanca
Blanca was a popular TV show on the Italian Rai in 2021 and is now available on Netflix.
Blanca is a young police consultant who specializes in audio file decoding and is hired as an intern at a police station in Genoa, Northern Italy. The woman became blind at the age of twelve as a result of a tragic fire in which her older sister Beatrice perished. Her tragedy instilled in her a strong sense of justice, prompting her to join the police force. The characters in the show don’t use a special dialect or accent, making it a great source for honing your Italian listening skills.
Generazione 56K
Generazione 56K is a fun Italian television series from 2021 about Matilda and Daniele, who met when they were teenagers and the Internet was still only available at work or via slow modems (from which the title of the show comes).
They started dating again in their early thirties after a chance encounter, thanks to the internet, which has changed everything, especially the way people date and work.
Boris
Boris is an Italian show released between 2007 and 2010 on Italian TV. The plot revolves around the making of an Italian series behind the scenes. When a new intern arrives, he finds out that the TV world is very different from what he thought it would be. This Italian series shows how often the race for money and success impacts the quality of what we see on TV. The show was top-rated in Italy, and it has also been released on Netflix.
Suburra
This is an extremely addictive and entertaining thriller from Rome with a brilliant Italian cast. A few years ago, I watched the first two seasons in three days because I was sick with the flu. The series follows the stories of some mafia gangs whose interests are entwined with corrupt politicians and the Vatican clergy. The plot is likely to be inspired by real events. Suburra will catch your attention, especially if you want to know more about the dark side of Italy.
Disclaimer: the main characters of Suburra are dodgy criminals and peculiar characters from the Roman suburbs. That’s why they use the Rome dialect and slang, which might be very challenging to catch for a non-native Italian speaker.
Still, the series is indeed worth watching. Make sure you pull up the Italian or English subtitles.
The Medici: Masters of Florence
The Medici is, in my view, the best Italian TV show of the last few years. It’s an Italian and British production, and so the series has been shot mostly in English. However, the Italian-dubbed version is great and has been a big hit in Italy for the whole three seasons.
This is a highly addictive and intriguing historical drama series. It centers on the rise and fall of the Medici family, the most powerful Italian family during the Italian Renaissance period. The series will show you a bit of how life used to be at those times, the wars, the political intrigues with the Vatican state, and, of course, the strong ties of the Medici Family with the most prominent creators of those times, like Michelangelo, Raffaello, and Leonardo, who worked for the family.
Baby
Baby is a Netflix Italian teen drama set in the neighborhood of Parioli, one of the most exclusive and trendy areas of contemporary Rome. The series follows the stories of a group of students at an elite high school that get involved in prostitution. The story has been inspired by real events that happened in Rome some years ago.
La Luna Nera (The Black Moon)
Luna Nera (Black Moon) is a 2020 Italian show on Netflix and the first Italian fantasy TV show on the platform.
It takes place in 17th-century Italy and follows Ade, a 17-year-old girl accused of witchcraft, who finds refuge with a community of women believed to be witches. The problem? The father of the boy she loves is a witch hunter.
Carlo e Malik
This is a 2018 Italian TV show created in collaboration between the RAI (Italian public television) and Netflix, which became a success in Italy. It’s a crime drama that follows the story of a veteran detective from Rome who holds plenty of prejudices against the vast immigrant community in Rome. He is teamed up with Malik, a young officer of African origin, and together they have to solve a string of murder cases very much connected with the subculture of immigrants in the capital. The show deals with a big and much-debated topic in contemporary Italy: immigration.
The Name of The Rose
It’s the TV adaptation of one of the most relevant masterpieces of Italian literature, The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco). It follows the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and his young novice Adso as they investigate a string of mysterious deaths, risking the wrath of a powerful inquisitor. The story takes place at an abbey in the Middle Ages. Like The Medici, it was shot in English, so make sure you select the Italian audio.
Which Italian show should you start with?
If you’re at an intermediate level, I’d start with a show in clear, standard Italian like Blanca or Cuori, with Italian subtitles. If you love crime and you’re ready for a challenge, Suburra and Mare Fuori will throw you right into the Italian of the streets. And if you want something light, Incastrati and Boris will make you laugh while you learn.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Italian show on Netflix for beginners?
Shows in clear, standard Italian are the easiest to follow, for example Blanca, Cuori or Non mentire. Watch them with Italian audio and English subtitles first, then switch to Italian subtitles.
Is Mare Fuori in Italian?
Mare Fuori is mostly in Neapolitan dialect, so many Italians watch it with Italian subtitles too. It is a great show, but it is not the best choice for practicing standard Italian.
Should I watch Italian shows with Italian or English subtitles?
Beginners can start with English subtitles. As soon as you can, switch to Italian subtitles: reading and listening to the same words at the same time builds vocabulary and listening skills much faster.
If you love a good Italian drama, try reading one too. My graded readers are stories set in Italy, written for learners, with audio so you can read and listen just like with a series. Here are three to start with:
7 Romance Short Stories in Italian
Level B1/B2
Seven stories about love and everyday life, full of natural conversations.
