Italian language stuff on streaming

November 16, 2022 2:34 PM

I want to watch Italian movies and TV with the subtitles on, for language practice. Is there anything on?

I have:
Netflix
Prime
HBO
Disney
"Peacock" - that's the NBC/Comcast stuff

I don't care what it's about, as long as it's not violent, scary or actively depressing. Extra points for period costumes.

posted by fingersandtoes to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

Best answer: I was getting ready to suggest Italian crime show Gomorrah, currently on HBO Max, but it's notably violent.

Netflix has 'Italian' as one of its many microgenres, which might be helpful.
posted by box at 2:43 PM on November 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: On Disney (and I assume most of the others) you could also turn on Italian audio and subtitles at least for newer stuff.

Every new Star Wars and Marvel show has 5 minutes of credits listing all the voiceover actors.
posted by sevenless at 3:27 PM on November 16, 2022

Best answer: I got the Italian series Montalbano on dvd from the library! it’s based on an excellent book series, and quite long. the actors are fantastic. it’s nominally a police procedural, but much better than most. however, it’s clearly in Sicilian dialect (with gorgeous locations), and while I found it easier to pick up than the faster northern Italian that I studied back in the day, apparently the idioms are *very* localized. now i’m watching the still fun but not quite as well written Inspector Coliandro, which takes place in Bologna.
posted by mollymillions at 4:56 PM on November 16, 2022

Best answer: I just watched romantic drama From Scratch on Netflix and it has a lot of Italian in it.
posted by cacao at 5:25 PM on November 16, 2022

The series SKAM Italia is easily found online for download and is a cute teen drama. I think there are at least 4 seasons.

As far as period costumes, I really liked Elisa di Rivombrosa and I'm sure it could be found on torrent sites
posted by Nickel at 5:29 PM on November 16, 2022

I'm sure the Criterion Channel has a ton of old Italian films.

Edit: I misread the question. But if you're in the mood for another subscription, there are tons of great Italian films there.
posted by VirginiaPlain at 5:31 PM on November 16, 2022

Inspector Montalbano is great - on MHZ and Hoopla.
posted by charlesminus at 5:42 PM on November 16, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm watching an Astrological Guide to Broken Hearts on netflix - it's a pretty standard sitcom type show that's dubbed to English from Italian, but I'd bet netflix has the Italian version too. it's set to current day, but it's about a bunch of people who work for a tv show, so they are pretty stylish.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:16 AM on November 17, 2022

Best answer: I've been doing exactly this, with similar "nothing scary / too violent / very grim" restrictions. If you're paying equal attention to both the voices and the subtitles then for me at least it's much better to find something that's originally in Italian, rather than something that's been subtitled and dubbed. In a translation, often the subtitles and the dubbed voices are translated in subtly different ways, which can be kind-of annoying.

On Netflix I've had some luck with:
* Guida astrologica per cuori infranti (as suggested by The_Vegetables above: short fun episodes)
* Luna Park (1960s costumes)
* Generazione 56k, if the 90s counts as period
* I didn't click with Luna Nera but it has some vaguely medieval/early modern witchy costumes going on (might get scary or violent, didn't watch enough to find out)
* I've only just started DI4RI but so far it looks like one of Netflix's "teenagers do teenager things [not-super-depressing subgenre]"

I couldn't find anything that worked for me on Disney and I don't have the others so not sure what's on them, but generally I've found that anything vaguely reality TV / cooking competition / slightly famous people on a game show etc works great. The genre is basically made for people to pay half-attention to, so often they explain everything over and over, or replay stuff, remind you what's going on, etc, and it's perfect for language learning. I've heard that there's meant to be an Italian season of La Talpa/The Mole coming to Netflix next year and if that happens I bet it'll be perfect for this.

(Also, this is not what you asked, sorry, but I've told Tiktok I only speak Italian and it's great for this too - very often there's subtitles, or if not the post will be 12 seconds long and you can let it loop to figure out what they're saying through repetition.)
posted by severalbees at 8:43 AM on November 18, 2022

Response by poster: thank you severalbees! I was excited initially to see that I could watch pretty much anything, dubbed in Italian; but it turned out the subtitles were entirely different from what was being spoken, which detracted from the usefulness, so original Italian programming is better.
posted by fingersandtoes at 5:01 PM on November 18, 2022