From psychological thrillers to romantic dramas, here are five of our favourite movies set in the floating city.
Nicolas Roeg, Don’t Look Now (1973)
For all the tourists and all the romance, Venice can be a creepy place. Away from St Mark’s Square are narrow, uninhabited alleys that Thomas Mann once wrote: “feels as though a hex was placed on them.” This is the atmosphere in Roeg’s horror masterpiece, as Donald Sutherland’s bereaved father hunts his missing daughter along the canals in moonlight, with a climax that nobody sees coming.
David Lean, Summertime (1955)
Though fronted by a charismatic and deeply considered performance by Katherine Hepburn, David Lean’s bittersweet ode to the fleeting nature of a summer romance, the true stars of Summertime are the winding waterways and intimate cityscape of Italy’s floating kingdom, and the host of colourful characters that reside there.
Joanna Hogg, The Souvenir (2019)
Johanna Hogg’s tale of a toxic relationship between young film student Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) and charismatic (and problematic) older man Anthony (Tom Burke) is predominantly set in London, but one standout sequence sees the two journey to Venice for a couples getaway that, despite the setting, feels anything but romantic.
Anthony Minghella, The Talented Mr. Ripley (2000)
Murderous Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) embarks from the fictional Italian town of Mangibello to Rome and then finally Venice in his pursuit of La dolce vita. One of the most stylish films of all time, our master manipulator Ripley relocates to La Serenissima after killing Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law). The cool greyness of Venice is a contrast to the sun-dappled Italian south; more mysterious, more secretive, and more lurking… No wonder Ripley feels at home here.
Luchino Visconti, Death In Venice (1971)
A beautiful film, made by a disturbed, noble filmmaker on perhaps the greatest book about Venice ever written. Mann’s novella puts the spotlight on Venice’s frayed decadence and Visconti’s adaptation is a somewhat on-the-line meditation on beauty, in this case the underage Tadzio (Bjorn Andrésen), who is the source of German Aschebach’s (Dirk Bogard) troubling affections. The city looks sweet and delicate, like a rippling whipped cream sponge cake. An essential Visconti.
Paul Schrader, The Comfort of Strangers (1990)
