Italian Directors and Actors

1. Alberto Sordi

One of Italy's most captivating and talented cinematic comedy stars, Italian veteran Alberto Sordi was known for satirizing his country's social mores in pungent black comedies, farcical tales and grim drama. He, along with peers Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi and Nino Manfredi, arguably represent ...

2. Claudia Gerini

Actress | The Passion of the Christ

Claudia Gerini was born in Rome, where she did classical studies and dance training. Her acting career began when an advertising agency cast her in several commercials.

Claudia Gerini has had a long movie career in Italy and abroad, working with actors and directors like Sergio Castellito, Giuseppe ...

3. Claudio Santamaria

Actor | Casino Royale

Claudio Santamaria is an Italian actor. Since 2017 he's been married to the journalist Francesca Barra. He played his most important film roles in L'ultimo capodanno (Marco Risi), L'assedio (Bernardo Bertolucci), and especially in L'ultimo bacio (Gabriele Muccino) for which he also receives a David...

4. Gabriele Lavia

Actor | Il principe di Homburg

Gabriele Lavia is one of the most important figures on the Italian stage scene. He devoted his work also to cinema, creating characters for some famous Italian horror movies like David Hemmings friend in "Profondo Rosso", the journalist of "Zeder". He also directed some movies like "Scandalosa ...

5. Gian Maria Volontè

Actor | Per un pugno di dollari

Born in Milan in 1933, Gian Maria Volontè studied in Rome at the National Dramatic Arts Academy, where he obtained his degree in 1957. He began working in theatre and television, where he was soon noticed as one of the most promising actors of his generation. After several supporting appearances in ...

6. Giancarlo Giannini

Actor | Quantum of Solace

Giancarlo Giannini is an Oscar-nominated Italian actor, director and multilingual dubber who made an international reputation for his leading roles in Italian films as well as for his mastery of a variety of languages and dialects.

He was born August 1, 1942, in La Spezia, Italy. For ten years young ...

7. Luca Zingaretti

Actor | Alla luce del sole

Luca Zingaretti was born on November 11, 1961 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is an actor and director, known for Come Into the Light (2005), Finding Nemo (2003) and Perez. (2014). He has been married to Luisa Ranieri since May 23, 2012. They have two children. He was previously married to Margherita ...

8. Luigi Lo Cascio

Actor | La meglio gioventù

Born in Palermo, Sicily on the 20th of October, 1967. Following the family tradition, enrolled into Medicine with the intention of becoming a psychiatrist. Began performing with a group of street actors in his native Palermo. In 1989 received a small part in a theatrical production ("Waiting for ...

9. Massimo Troisi

Actor | Il postino

His acting career started when he was 15 in a theatre (Centro Teatro Spazio). In 1969 he founded the group "I saraceni" (later renamed "La smorfia") with Enzo Decaro and Lello Arena. He became famous to the TV audience between 1976 and 1979 with two TV programs "Non Stop" and "Luna Park". First ...

10. Kim Rossi Stuart

Actor | Vallanzasca - Gli angeli del male

Kim Rossi Stuart was born on October 31th, 1969 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He began acting at the age of 5 along with his father Giacomo Rossi Stuart in The Murri Affair (1974). Kim's mother, Klara Müller, is an ex-top model. Kim has 3 sisters, 2 of them actresses like him: Loretta Rossi Stuart and ...

11. Margherita Buy

Actress | Mia madre

Margherita Buy was born on January 15, 1962 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for My Mother (2015), His Secret Life (2001) and Days and Clouds (2007). She was previously married to Sergio Rubini.

12. Marcello Mastroianni

Actor | La dolce vita

Marcello Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, Italy in 1924, but soon his family moved to Turin and then Rome. During WW2 he was sent to a German prison camp, but he managed to escape and hide in Venice. He debuted in films as an extra in Marionette (1939), then started working for the Italian ...

13. Michele Riondino

Actor | La ragazza del mondo

Michele Riondino was born on March 14, 1979 in Taranto, Puglia, Italy. He is an actor, known for Worldly Girl (2016), The Past Is a Foreign Land (2008) and Dormant Beauty (2012).

14. Pierfrancesco Favino

Actor | World War Z

Pierfrancesco Favino was born on August 24, 1969 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is known for his work on World War Z (2013), Rush (2013) and Angels & Demons (2009).

15. Ornella Muti

Actress | Flash Gordon

Ornella Muti was born on March 9, 1955 in Rome, Lazio, Italy as Francesca Romana Rivelli. She is known for her work on Flash Gordon (1980), Oscar (1991) and The Most Beautiful Wife (1970). She was previously married to Federico Fachinetti and Alessio Orano.

16. Riccardo Scamarcio

Actor | John Wick: Chapter 2

Riccardo Scamarcio was born on November 13, 1979 in Trani, Apulia, Italy. He is an actor and producer, known for John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), Loose Cannons (2010) and Three Steps Over Heaven (2004).

17. Sergio Rubini

Actor | The Passion of the Christ

Sergio Rubini was born on December 21, 1959 in Grumo Appula, Puglia, Italy. He is an actor and writer, known for The Passion of The Christ (2004), The Station (1990) and Our Land (2006). He was previously married to Margherita Buy.

18. Valeria Golino

Actress | Rain Man

The second child of an Italian germanist and a Greek painter, Valeria Golino grew up in Naples until her parents parted. After three years in Athens with her mother and another three in Naples with her father, she began to work as a model. She left high school after her first movie and didn't study...

19. Stefano Accorsi

Actor | Le fate ignoranti

Stefano Accorsi was born on March 2, 1971 in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He is an actor and writer, known for His Secret Life (2001), Italian Race (2016) and Io non ti conosco (2013). He has been married to Bianca Vitali since November 24, 2015. They have one child.

20. Totò

Actor | Guardie e ladri

'Antonio Griffo Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comneno Porfirogenito Gagliardi De Curtis di Bisanzio' was a descendant of the 'Comneno di Bizanzio' and also one of the most popular Italian film stars in history. His genre was undoubtedly the comedy where he achieved world fame. From 1917 he was an actor...

21. Ugo Tognazzi

Actor | Il fischio al naso

Despite Ugo Tognozzi's many superb, award-winning performances accumulated over a four-decade career (and I do mean many), this short (5'8") but virile, mustachioed, stocky-framed Italian character star will be forever cherished if only for his one classic comedy role -- that of gay cabaret owner ...

22. Vittorio Gassman

Actor | Sleepers

Vittorio Gassman studied theatre in his youth and was quite a good basketball player. He debuted on stage in 1943 and soon felt home in all classical theatre works. Since 1946 he also worked at the movies and his first big role there was the criminal in Bitter Rice (1949). This fixed him to his ...

23. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

Actress | Il est plus facile pour un chameau...

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi was born on November 16, 1964 in Turin, Piedmont, Italy. She is an actress and director, known for It's Easier for a Camel... (2003), Human Capital (2013) and Like Crazy (2016).

24. Nino Manfredi

Actor | Pane e cioccolata

Nino Manfredi was born on March 22, 1921 in Castro dei Volsci, Lazio, Italy as Saturnino Manfredi. He was an actor and writer, known for Bread and Chocolate (1974), Between Miracles (1971) and Café Express (1980). He was married to Erminia Ferrari Manfredi. He died on June 4, 2004 in Rome, ...

25. Dario Argento

Writer | Profondo rosso

Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940, in Rome, Italy, the first-born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for filmmaking from his close-knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other ...

26. Federico Fellini

Writer | Le notti di Cabiria

The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the ...

27. Elio Petri

Writer | Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto

Elio Petri was born on January 29, 1929 in Rome, Lazio, Italy as Eraclio Petri. He was a writer and director, known for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), We Still Kill the Old Way (1967) and Lulu the Tool (1971). He was married to Paola Pegoraro. He died on November 10, 1982 in ...

28. Marco Tullio Giordana

Director | Romanzo di una strage

Marco Tullio Giordana was born on October 1, 1950 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. He is a director and writer, known for Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (2012), One Hundred Steps (2000) and The Best of Youth (2003).

29. Sergio Leone

Writer | Once Upon a Time in America

Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema - he was the son of Roberto Roberti (A.K.A. Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy's cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and U.S. directors working in ...

30. Michelangelo Antonioni

Writer | Blowup

Michelangelo Antonioni was born in 1912 into a middle-class family and grew up in bourgeois surroundings of the Italian province. In Bologna he studied economics and commerce while he painted and also wrote criticism for a local newspaper. In 1939 he went to Rome and worked for the journal "Cinema"...

31. Roberto Rossellini

Writer | Germania anno zero

The master filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, as one of the creators of neo-realism, is one of the most influential directors of all time. His neo-realist films influenced France's nouvelle vague movement in the 1950s and '60s that changed the face of international cinema. He also influenced American ...

32. Roberto Benigni

Actor | La vita è bella

Roberto Benigni was born on October 27, 1952 in Manciano La Misericordia, Castiglion Fiorentino, Tuscany, Italy as Roberto Remigio Benigni. He is an actor and writer, known for Life Is Beautiful (1997), The Tiger and the Snow (2005) and Down by Law (1986). He has been married to Nicoletta Braschi ...

33. Vittorio De Sica

Director | Ladri di biciclette

Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his poor family. He was increasingly drawn towards acting, and made his screen debut while still in his teens, joining a stage company in 1923. By the late 1920s he was a successful matinee ...

34. Bernardo Bertolucci

Writer | Ultimo tango a Parigi

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director whose films were known for their colorful visual style, was born in Parma, Italy. He attended Rome University and became famous as a poet. He served as assistant director for Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film Accattone (1961) and directed The Grim Reaper (...

35. Giuseppe Bertolucci

Director | Berlinguer ti voglio bene

Giuseppe Bertolucci was born on February 24, 1947 in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He was a director and writer, known for Berlinguer: I Love You (1977), Il dolce rumore della vita (1999) and Segreti segreti (1985). He was married to Lucilla Albano. He died on June 16, 2012 in Diso, Puglia, Italy.

36. Paolo Virzì

Writer | La prima cosa bella

Paolo Virzì was born on March 4, 1964 in Livorno, Tuscany, Italy. He is a writer and director, known for The First Beautiful Thing (2010), Tutta la vita davanti (2008) and Human Capital (2013). He has been married to Micaela Ramazzotti since January 17, 2009. They have two children. He was ...

37. Michele Placido

Actor | Romanzo criminale

Michele Placido was born on May 19, 1946 in Ascoli Satriano, Puglia, Italy. He is an actor and writer, known for Romanzo Criminale (2005), La piovra (1984) and Un eroe borghese (1995). He has been married to Federica Vincenti since August 14, 2012. They have one child. He was previously married to ...

38. Giovanni Anzaldo

Actor | Razza bastarda

Giovanni Anzaldo was born on November 12, 1987 in Rivalta di Torino, Piedmont, Italy. He is an actor and director, known for The Mongrel (2012), Sullo stress del piccione (2017) and Human Capital (2013).

39. Gabriele Salvatores

Director | Io non ho paura

Gabriele Salvatores was born on July 30, 1950 in Naples, Campania, Italy. He is a director and writer, known for I'm Not Scared (2003), Nirvana (1997) and The Invisible Boy (2014).

40. Maya Sansa

Actress | Buongiorno, notte

Born in Rome in 1975, Maya Sansa is of Italian and Iranian descent. According to her interview (Io Donna magazine), Maya met her father for the first time when she was 15; until then, she had been living in Rome with her mother. As a teenager she moved to London, where she lived for many years ...

41. Jasmine Trinca

Actress | The Gunman

Jasmine Trinca was born on April 24, 1981 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Gunman (2015), The Son's Room (2001) and Fortunata (2017).

42. Toni Servillo

Actor | La grande bellezza

Actor and director Toni Servillo was born in Afragola in 1959. In 1977 Servillo founded the Teatro Studio in Caserta for whom he directed 'Propaganda' (1979), 'Norma' (1982), 'Billy il bugiardo' (1983) and 'Guernica' (1985), amongst others. In 1986 he collaborated with the Falso Movimento group, ...

43. Alessio Boni

Actor | La meglio gioventù

Alessio Boni was born on July 4, 1966 in Sarnico, Lombardy, Italy. He is an actor and director, known for The Best of Youth (2003), The Tourist (2010) and The Goodbye Kiss (2006).

44. Paolo Sorrentino

Writer | Youth

Paolo Sorrentino was born on May 31, 1970 in Naples, Campania, Italy. He is a writer and director, known for Youth (2015), The Great Beauty (2013) and This Must Be the Place (2011). He is married to Daniela D'Antonio. They have two children.

45. Donato Carrisi

Writer | La ragazza nella nebbia

Donato Carrisi was born on March 25, 1973 in Martina Franca, Apulia, Italy. He is a writer and director, known for The Girl in the Fog (2017), Into the Labyrinth (2019) and Era mio fratello (2007).

46. Daniele Luchetti

Director | Mio fratello è figlio unico

Daniele Luchetti was born on July 26, 1960 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is a director and writer, known for My Brother Is an Only Child (2007), The Yes Man (1991) and It's Happening Tomorrow (1988).

47. Elio Germano

Actor | Il giovane favoloso

Elio Germano was born on September 25, 1980 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is an actor and writer, known for Leopardi - Il giovane favoloso (2014), Nine (2009) and My Brother Is an Only Child (2007).

48. Fabrizio Gifuni

Actor | Il capitale umano

Fabrizio Gifuni was born on July 16, 1966 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is an actor and writer, known for Human Capital (2013), Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (2012) and Hannibal (2001). He has been married to Sonia Bergamasco since 2000. They have two children.

49. Laura Chiatti

Actress | Il caso dell'infedele Klara

Laura Chiatti was born on July 15, 1982 in Castiglione del Lago, Perugia, Umbria, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Case of Unfaithful Klara (2009), Ho voglia di te (2007) and Our Country (2006). She has been married to Marco Bocci since July 5, 2014. They have two children.

50. Daria Nicolodi

Actress | Profondo rosso

Daria Nicolodi was born on June 19, 1950 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for Deep Red (1975), Phenomena (1985) and Property Is No Longer a Theft (1973). She died on November 26, 2020 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

51. Pupi Avati

Writer | Gli amici del bar Margherita

Pupi Avati was born on November 3, 1938 in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy as Giuseppe Avati. He is a writer and director, known for The Friends at the Margherita Cafe (2009), The Story of Boys & Girls (1989) and Giovanna's Father (2008).

52. Massimiliano Gallo

Actor | Mine vaganti

Massimiliano Gallo was born on June 19, 1968 in Naples, Campania, Italy. He is an actor, known for Loose Cannons (2010), Perez. (2014) and Si accettano miracoli (2015).

53. Ennio Fantastichini