How Can I Visit Rome's Famous Film Locations?

Rome is, in every aspect and every corner, a massive film set. From the mid-20th century until today, screenwriters and directors have been unable to resist the call of the Eternal City.

During your vacation, you’ll easily come across film crews shooting a movie. Or you’ll see areas of the city literally invaded by large film production trucks.

And if you look around carefully, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to ask for autographs from celebrities from film or television.

Not just Cinecittà, the district specifically designed for filming. Almost every neighborhood in Rome has a cinematic story to tell. From the great films of neorealism in the 1950s to the dolce vita of the 1960s, to many international hits from recent years.

The Great Sets of Italian and International Cinema

There are places in Rome that have become famous worldwide thanks to scenes that remain etched in everyone’s mind.

Rome has seduced countless Italian directors, but also American ones. Many Hollywood productions have brought their cameras and actors to a city so rich in history, monuments, suggestions, and atmosphere.

Here are some areas of Rome that Italian and international cinema has made iconic. The list could be almost endless, but here’s enough to fill a good portion of your vacation!

Trevi Fountain and La Dolce Vita

With La dolce vita, the camera of that great director and dreamer Federico Fellini immortalized this baroque corner of Rome in the 1960s. Remember the nighttime walk with Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni immersed in the water of the Trevi Fountain? It’s one of the most unforgettable images in cinema history.

Many people try to repeat this scene, though they risk hefty fines! Many tourists (but not only) decide to enter the fountain for a memorable photo or video. But the regulations are clear and strictly prohibit anyone from entering the water.

That scene between dream and reality remains unique.

But you can relive that dream, between the Trevi Fountain and other wonders, thanks to the La dolce vita tour offered by Sidecar Tour in Rome!

Piazza di Spagna and Via Margutta in Roman Holiday

In American director William Wyler‘s famous film, the two stars of Roman Holiday, Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, walk up the Trinità dei Monti staircase. They eat gelato and immerse themselves in the bustling beauty of 1950s Rome.

Going up Via del Corso, you can enter Via Margutta, one of Rome’s most evocative streets, where Peck’s character lived.

But what really captivated audiences was the Vespa ride that Gregory Peck gives Audrey Hepburn. This way, he shows her Rome’s wonders from the scooter’s seat.

So why not relive the same emotions as these two Hollywood stars?

Sidecar Tour in Rome lets you visit aboard a Vespa the most beautiful places in the Eternal City!

Castel Sant’Angelo in Angels & Demons

We’re still talking about international cinema, but from much more recent years.

Angels & Demons, the film by Ron Howard based on Dan Brown’s bestseller, centers around the Vatican area. The terrace of Castel Sant’Angelo is one of the film’s most spectacular locations.

The Colosseum in Gladiator

Although much of Gladiator was digitally reconstructed, Ridley Scott still wanted to shoot some scenes with Russell Crowe inside the real Colosseum.

A visit to Rome’s iconic monument will therefore also be a journey through cinema history, as well as a journey through ancient history.

Basilica of San Paolo fuori le mura in The Great Beauty

Rome is also the grand protagonist of The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino‘s Oscar-winning 2014 film.

Sorrentino brought his camera to many places in Rome, but one is particularly significant. The spiritual conversation scene with protagonist Jep Gambardella takes place at the basilica of San Paolo fuori le mura. It’s Rome’s second most important church, after St. Peter’s in the Vatican. A place imposing and solemn like few others.

Piazza della Repubblica in To Rome with Love

Woody Allen filmed To Rome with Love (released in 2013) in many locations throughout the city. The film, as the title says, is entirely set in Rome. One interesting location, perhaps less considered by other directors, is Piazza della Repubblica, near Termini station. Here, in the story, the premiere of a film starring the protagonist, Italian actor Roberto Benigni, takes place.

Quarticciolo, Garbatella, and Testaccio in Neorealist Cinema

If you want to discover the most authentic soul of Rome, you need to visit these neighborhoods. Quarticciolo has remained very working-class, while Garbatella and Testaccio have become somewhat more fashionable. But deep down, there’s still the heart of a city as shown by Italian neorealist directors in the postwar period.

Films like Vittorio De Sica’s Shoeshine, Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone unfold among courtyards, squares, and working-class architecture. Places that still today, if you know where to look, seem to have stepped out of one of those film frames.

When watching neorealist films, one striking element is the great contrast. On one side, a glamorous and polished Rome. On the other, a Rome that still needed to shake off poverty, hardship, and ugly wartime memories. As if in the same city, in the real city, stars performed every day, admired and envied by a dreaming audience of spectators. This also contributes to Rome’s fame as an open-air film set.

Via Veneto as Symbol of an Era

Today, Via Vittorio Veneto in Rome is a beautiful street with prestigious restaurants and hotels. But the years when the Italian and international film world met here remain a dazzling memory. Among the outdoor café tables, meetings between world-famous directors, screenwriters, and actors wrote the history of great cinema every evening.

These were the years when Italy was experiencing its “economic miracle.” And while the road was still uphill for many Italians, Rome was already projected into the future. It was a beacon that illuminated the lives of ordinary people with light and dreams.

Fellini, Rossellini, Mastroianni, Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren… are just some of the great directors and actors who helped turn the world’s spotlight on Italy, and especially on Rome.

From Trastevere to Centocelle in Pasolini’s Working-Class Districts

Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of the most intellectual Italian directors and writers of the 1960s and 70s, preferred to bring a different Rome to the screen. Not the center and its beauties, not the glamour of Via Veneto, but especially the outskirts. Places considered “in” and fashionable today were, in Pasolini’s time, places of poverty, degradation, and petty crime. But also of humanity and poetry, for those who knew how to see them.

Pasolini’s cinema, like his books, is considered somewhat “difficult,” art house cinema, somewhat intellectual and certainly not mainstream. Nevertheless, in his films it’s often the most working-class Rome that takes center stage.

Cinecittà, a City Dedicated to Cinema

In the early decades of the 20th century, a true “city within the city” was dedicated to cinema.

Cinecittà is a kind of Italian Hollywood, located in the eastern part of the capital.

Not only Italian films have been shot here, but also epics like Ben-Hur and Cleopatra. And in more recent times, Gangs of New York and many scenes from Gladiator. But these are just a few examples among the countless that could be mentioned.

Today, the glory and splendor of the dolce vita are part of cinema history (and Italian history). But Cinecittà still hosts, in its large spaces and studios, important film and television productions.

It’s also a place to visit, with a museum, exhibitions, and permanent sets.

Inside, you can admire recreations of ancient Rome, walk among temples and reconstructions of the Roman Forum, but also find yourself in Renaissance Florence.

You can also visit themed exhibitions dedicated to sets, costumes, special effects, and the history of Italian cinema.

Visit Rome’s Cinema Locations with Sidecar Tour

Thanks to Sidecar Tour in Rome, you can visit the great cinema locations in Rome in the most… cinematic way possible.

Aboard a Vespa sidecar, you can experience your own Roman holiday as the protagonist.

Sidecar Tour in Rome allows you to organize customized routes, through which you can touch all the milestones of cinema history.

It’s the most simple, agile, and dynamic way to move around this city, rich in great monuments but also in hidden gems to discover. Aboard a Vespa, it’s easy to reach places where other vehicles, like cars or buses, cannot go.

One of our guides will lead you to discover Rome and cinema history. Meanwhile, you’ll be free to admire everything around you, to let your gaze wander through the great beauty, and to take memorable photos.

Feel like a star on vacation yourself!

Discover everything you can do visiting the Eternal City with Sidecar Tour in Rome!