Sicily: One Big Movie Set 

Lights, Camera, ACTION...

Sicily has a storied relationship with cinema. The Greek Roman Theatre in Taormina has been the setting of the annual TaoFilm Festival for over 60 years, and the island itself has been featured on the big screen since the 1940s.

The breath-taking seascapes, towering mountains, erupting volcanoes, Arcadian pastures, age-old mountain villages, burnished wheat fields, bustling towns, Greek theatres, ancient traditions and paradisiacal beaches of Sicily are just some of the reasons why so many location managers and directors choose to shoot here.

Below some of the movies and television programmes which have had international acclaim:

• Visconti, a father of cinematic neorealism, could hardly keep away from the island. He chose to shoot La Terra Trema (1948) in Aci Trezza and large sections of The Leopard (1963) in Palermo and its surrounding area

• Roberto Rossellini filmed Stromboli, Land of God (1950) on one of the Aeolian Islands (and also found the time to have an affair with the film’s star, Ingrid Bergman!)

• At the same time, Rossellini’s ex fiancée and acclaimed actress Anna Magnani was on a nearby Aeolian Island filming Vulcano (1950), directed by William Dieterle

• Giorgio Bianchi’s farce Intrigo a Taormina (1960), also known as Femmine di Lusso or Love, the Italian Way, features a cast of Italian stars getting up to mischief on the Sicilian coast

• Extensive parts of The Godfather (1972) and its 1974 and 1990 sequels were filmed in Sicily. Forza d'Agro, Savoca, Taormina, at il Castello degli Schiavi and Palermo all make appearances. The dramatic final scenes at the Teatro Massimo are a clear highlight

• 1988 was a good year for Sicily in cinema. Luc Besson’s cult movie The Big Blue (1988) was partly set at Capotaormina and the San Domenico Hotel in Taormina

• If you have ever seen Tornatore’s wonderfully gentle film Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1988), you might have noticed Palazzo Adriano and Cefalù making appearances

• Roberto Benigni spent time in Taormina making Il Piccolo Diavolo (1988) and returned to the island to shoot the hilarious movie Johnny Stecchino (1991) in Palermo

• The lovely Il Postino (1994), starring Massimo Troisi, Philippe Noiret and Maria Grazia Cucinotta, was shot partly on the Aeolian island of Salina.

• Woody Allen decided that Taormina’s Greek-Roman theatre was the perfect setting for the Greek chorus and Cassandra’s hilarious sequences in Mighty Aphrodite (1995)

• Tornatore filmed Malena (2000) with Monica Bellucci in Noto, Syracuse and Taormina

• The climax of Ocean’s Twelve (2004), starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, was filmed at the Tonnara in Scopello 

• Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) used footage of Mount Etna’s 2002 eruption to help out with special effects for its climatic volcano battle

• The DC Comics film Aquaman (2018) features a fictional Sicilian town that combines elements of Taormina and its neighbours Erice and Scopello

• Alessandro Lunardelli’s powerful film La Regola d’Oro (2020) took over Taormina during filming, where it featured over 200 extras on the streets of Sicily’s tourism capital

• The second season of award-winning show The White Lotus (2021-) is both set and filmed in Taormina. Will Sharpe, one of the stars of the series, and Alex Bovaird, the show’s costume designer, stayed at Villa Scimone during filming.