Movie Tour: Venice on the Silver Screen

This railway station is the obvious starting point of several movies, from the dramatic "The Anonymous Venetian" (1970) to the romantic-adventurous "The Tourist (2010)", but particularly unforgettable as the place where the most bizzarre gondolier in the movie history (the italian actor Alberto Sordi) "hooks" foreign tourists in "Venice, the moon and you" (1958).

In this large "campo" in the Jewish Ghetto Luchino Visconti sets the beginning of the passion between the countess Livia Serpieri (Alida Valli) and the Austrian lieutenant Franz Mahler (Farley Granger) in "Senso" ( 1954).

The funeral boats in the final scenes of "Don't look back now" (1973) moored in front of this church, overlooking the Grand Canal with its imposing Baroque facade.

In 1896 Alexandre Promio boarded a gondola and made the first rundown in the history of cinema, filming boats and men at work. Since then, the Grand Canal and its over 170 buildings have appeared in dozens of films: from "the talented Mr. Ripley (1999), in which Ripley's Venetian apartment is actually the fusion of two buildings overlooking the canal, to "the merchant of Venice" (2004) starring Al Pacino.

The scene of "The Tourist" (2010) in which Johnny Depp launches himself from a terrace onto a stall was shot at the Rialto fish market. On the other side of the canal you will find the location of the palace collapsing in another James Bond movie, "Casino royale" (2006), which of course was just a movie fiction.

This small and beautiful chuch is adorned with polychrome marble and it was chosen by Orson Welles for the wedding of Otello and Desdemona in "Othello" (1952). The flower shop (we will not see it, it was fictional!) where Licia Maglietta works in "Bread and Tulips" (1999) is located in the "campo" just few steps behind the church.

This one of the location of the series "the new Pope" (2019), directed by Paolo Sorrentino, starring Jude Law.

This palace, currently a civic museum is the fictional Drax's office in James Bond movie "Moonraker" (1979).

The movie "Senso" (1954) begins during a performance of "Il Trovatore" staged at "La Fenice", showing this theater in all its splendor before the devastating fire in 1996. The current building was rebuilt (also thanks to this sequence) and reopened in 2003. Ironically the name "the phoenix" (La Fenice) derives from the fact that the theater had already been partially destroyed by a fire in 1836 and then had "risen" again.

According to a legend, this is the house of Desdemona. In "Othello" (1952), Orson Welles chooses the palace as the home of Brabanzio (not in Venice, but in Cyprus) and gives it a renewed (and deserved) popularity.

This "campo" has been "destroyed" during the shooting of "Spiderman: far from home" (2019), starring Tom Holland. Do not worry, the devastation was just fictional and we will admire this beatiful corner of Venice in all its original beauty.

In the basements of the San Barnaba church, Indiana Jones finds the "X that (never) indicates the place to dig" in "Indiana Jones and the last crusade" (1989). In "Summer Time" (1955), Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) is an American tourist on vacation in Venice and wanders around the city with her camera, accidentally falling into the San Barnaba canal . This location was also chosen for the remake of "The Italian Job" (2003).

After being the Doge Gritti's family palace and the residence of the Vatican ambassadors, this building was transformed into a luxury hotel: among its most famous guests John Ruskin, Ernest Hemingway and Somerset Maugham. More recently Woody Allen chose this hotel for several scenes in "Everyone says I Love You" (1996), starring Julia Roberts.

In this church the "Illuminati" sect gahter in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" (2001), although the room that appears is the Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College, in London. It is also the church that can be seen behind Ripley in his dialogue with Dickie's father in "the Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), a conversation that takes place on the terrace of the Hotel Westin Europa & Regina on the other side of the canal.

This is the location where Julia Roberts used to jog in Woody Allen's "Everyone says I love you" (1996) and where Katherine Hepburn freshens up during her torrid venetian "Summer Time" (1955)

This very luxurious hotel, in addition to hosting Wolfgang Goethe, Richard Wagner and Honoré de Balzac and being the stage of the tumultuous relationship between George Sand and Alfred de Musset, was used by Vittorio de Sica in his last movie, "The Journey (1974), starring Sophia Loren and Richard Burton; it also appears in "Moonraker" (1979) as it was the hotel of Holly Goodhead) . It is also the hotel where Raniero Cotti Borroni (Carlo Verdone) and Fosca (Veronica Pivetti) spend theirfirst tragicomic wedding night in "Viaggi di Nozze" (1995).

James Bond's gondola-hovercraft in "Moonraker" (1979) is certainly the most unique form of transport that has ever crossed San Marco square. And it is not the only time that James Bond wanders around here. Iin Casino Royale (2006), Bond's hotel has an enviable view right on San Marco square. Orson Welles also chose the side facade south of the basilica for a dramatic dialogue between Brabanzio and Othello (Othello, 1952). On the the final scene of "the Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999) takes place at the tables of one of the cafès in the "Piazza". Paolo Sorrentino shot some scenes of the series "the Young Pope", with Jude Law and Diane Keaton in this square, too.