Feature · Rome on film
Rome on film: La Dolce Vita, Roman Holiday and The Great Beauty
Rome has been the cinema’s favourite stage for more than seventy years. Here are five films to watch before you go, each with its official trailer. By the ULTIMATE Rome Editorial Team.
Updated October 2026
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Federico Fellini’s portrait of a gossip journalist, played by Marcello Mastroianni, drifting through a summer of parties and nightclubs, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1960. Its most famous scene, Anita Ekberg wading into the Trevi Fountain, made the fountain a place of pilgrimage. Today you can stand at its edge on a €2 ticket, but stepping into the water is not allowed.
Roman Holiday (1953)
William Wyler shot Roman Holiday on the streets of Rome: a runaway princess, Audrey Hepburn, and an American reporter, Gregory Peck, see the city on a Vespa, from the Spanish Steps to the Mouth of Truth. Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role.
The Great Beauty (2013)
Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande Bellezza follows Jep Gambardella, played by Toni Servillo, a writer who has spent his life in Rome’s high society, through the terraces, palazzi and churches of a long Roman summer. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Spectre (2015)
In Spectre, James Bond comes to Rome and the city stars in a night-time car chase through its streets and along the Tiber.
To Rome with Love (2012)
Woody Allen’s comedy weaves four stories through the city’s streets and piazzas, a light-hearted tour of Rome.
Visit the studios
Cinecittà, the film studios on the Via Tuscolana, has worked with film-makers from Fellini onwards; see its own website for visits. Each autumn the Rome Film Fest fills the Auditorium Parco della Musica.
Questions and answers
Where was the Trevi Fountain scene in La Dolce Vita filmed?
At the Trevi Fountain itself; today wading into the fountain is not allowed.
Trailers play from the official YouTube channels named under each film (checked 27 October 2026).