Venice is one of the most famous and historic cities in Italy. It is known throughout the world for its unique architecture, many canals and strapping gondoliers, numerous ornate bridges and incomparable Renaissance palaces. Once the largest port in Europe and the gateway to Asia’s Silk Road, it is nevertheless a surprisingly manageable place. Venice’s unwavering popularity and rich cultural heritage eyplain the high amount of top movies set in Venice, Italy.

The city does very well on the big screen, so some of these Venice movies are the perfect way to inspire you to take a trip and make you want to visit Venice.

Maybe you’ve already booked a trip to Venice and you want to use Venice movies as a taster to get you ready. Anyway, here are some of my favorite movies set in Venice, which reflect the charm of the city in an enchanting way.

Do you want to discover Venice on your own?

Discovering Venice on your own can be an exciting and rewarding experience. A travel book will be a valuable resource where to look up historical and cultural information, as well as practical information and language tips.

Here you can find my personal recommendations on the best Venice travel guides:

My favorite movies set in Venice

Summertime (1955)

It’s interesting how many films there are in which women travel to Italy to escape their desperate, lonely lives. I can think of at least four off the top of my head. One of those films set in Venice is David Lean’s 1955 film Summertime, starring a great Katherine Hepburn.

In it, she plays an unmarried secretary from Ohio, USA who embarks on her dream trip to Venice. The beauty of the film is the mood of a bygone Venice from the 1950s, and that many places in the lagoon, for example the islands of Murano and Burano, are also shown. It’s a phenomenal film and definitely a classic about Venice from a tourist’s point of view.

Death in Venice (1971)

Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation of Death in Venice is based on Thomas Mann’s classic novella and embodies Mann’s themes of decadence and debauchery both visually and thematically. It depicts Venice as an opulent but dissolute paradise where terminally ill protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) spends his final years.

Around 1800, at the time of the cholera epidemic, Gustav travels to Venice to recover from his serious health problems. He falls in love with a Polish teenager staying at his hotel, the Grand Hôtel des Bains, and feels invigorated by it.

His infatuation with the young Polish woman contributes to a brief rejuvenation, but his tragic love eventually consumes him and becomes a meditation on lost youth and aesthetic beauty. This delightfully slow film reveals a darker side of Venice’s reputation for beauty and romance, indulging instead in the parallel problems of voyeuristic obsession and decay.

Death in Venice is a somewhat artsy, European Venice film, so it’s pretty special. Also, the subject matter doesn’t exactly make it a film that inspires wanderlust for Venice (people dying, a grown man in love with a 14-year-old, etc.). But in the end, a very nice, stylized film that moved me a little outside my comfort zone.

Fellini’s Casanova (1976)

Fellini’s Casanova may have been shot mostly at the Cinecittà studio in Rome, but the film shows Venice through the surreal prism of Federico Fellini’s twisted vision.

Only the first half hour is set in Venice, and yet what makes it special is that it is one of the few cinematic attempts to depict the Venetian carnival in full swing.

Typical of Fellini, the excesses and debauchery for which the carnival is legendary are shown heightened to an outrageous degree. He depicts Casanova’s entry into the world of sexual debauchery and decadence that he would later make his own. As the film progresses, Casanova travels to Paris, London, and Germany, but the climax of the licentiousness takes place in Venice, which sets the tone of the extravagant excess in this film.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Like perhaps many adults of my generation, I grew up on action movies. And Indiana Jones is without a doubt one of the BEST travel inspiring movie series of all time!

If you’re planning a trip to Venice, the third installment, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” is a must-see. The movie is set in 1938, and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is on a quest to find his father, who is a Grail scholar and – as you might expect – has been kidnapped by the Nazis.

The Last Crusade was filmed in many locations around the world, including Venice, Italy, Andalusia in Spain, Petra in Jordan, Germany, England and the USA (Utah, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico). The search for Jones Senior begins in Venice, and the film features great shots of the Grand Canal and some other corners of Venice.

Campo San Barnaba, in front of the church of the same name, is then where the scene was shot in which the film’s protagonist, after walking through the (non-existent) underground passages in search of the grave of one of the guardians of the Grail, emerges from a manhole in the middle of the square, to the embarrassment of the elegant customers of the bar sitting at the tables.

The church of S. Barnabas, which dates back to the Middle Ages and was rebuilt in the second half of the 18th century by the architect Lorenzo Boschetti, is still basically a church, although it currently houses an exhibition on the machines invented by Leonardo da Vinci. A library, as in the movie, was never housed there.

Its bell tower, by the way, is one of the oldest in the city!

Bread & Tulips (2000)

The film tells the story of Rosalba, a spoiled housewife who, after being abandoned (accidentally) in a rest stop, does not return to her family but seizes the opportunity and decides to travel to Venice in search of new adventures to escape her domineering and deceitful husband. She finds solace with Fernando Girasole, played by Bruno Ganz, and his strange circle of friends and acquaintances.

Yet Italian films set in Venice are extremely rare, and this film is the best example. It follows the familiar pattern of a vacation gone wrong, but adds a dose of eccentric charm in the form of protagonist Rosalba Barletta, played by the lively Licia Maglietta.

The eccentricity of Bread and Tulips’ Venice portrayal distinguishes this film as a particularly Italian take on the conventional Venetian romance, and Maglietta’s performance avoids the tendency toward schmaltz that such films usually exhibit.

Bread and Tulips is a small, hidden gem and may be hard to find on streaming services, but it is just such a raw and endearing love story.

The Italian Job (2003)

The 2003 version is a loose remake of The Italian Job (1969) starring Michael Caine and moves the action from Turin to Venice. Many of the Venetian alleys and canals were closed off for filming, and even St. Mark’s Square was closed off for some scenes.

Even though the film doesn’t quite match the quality of the original, The Italian Job is still worth seeing. The Mini Cooper cars, the breathtaking Venice locations, and the reasonably exciting plot of the heist are still entertaining in The Italian Job.

The Merchant of Venice (2004)

There are several film adaptations of this play by William Shakespeare, because the play Romeo and Juliet, set in Verona, is usually preferred. The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino as the villain Shylock, is also worth seeing. Set in 16th century Venice, the film is about a merchant named Antonio (Jeremy Irons) who is unable to repay a loan and gets into big trouble as a result.

The film is generally highly praised, even though, according to statistics, hardly anyone has seen it and it was a real flop at the box office. But – big BUT – the film was shot in Venice and yet it is well directed.

The character of Shylock is brought to the fore, with Al Pacino delivering a masterful portrayal of the tormented and persecuted Jewish moneylender. While Shylock is more of a villain in Shakespeare’s play, he becomes a tragic hero in director Michael Radford’s adaptation, and Pacino’s haunting performance plays with the ambiguities of the text.

The city emerges as a grim and troubling quagmire, rife with communal violence and anti-Semitism, and imbued with a gloom that suits Pacino’s world-weary portrayal. So if you’ve ever wondered what the city might have looked like 400 years ago… this may be your only chance to catch a glimpse of Renaissance Venice – as we imagine it, at least! Just be glad you’ll never know what Venice smelled like back then.

Casino Royale (2006)

The 21st film in the James Bond series, Casino Royale, might be my favorite of the series. I know Sean Connery is supposed to be the best Bond, but Daniel Craig is MY Bond: ruthless, headstrong, and sometimes downright evil.

Like most Bond films, it features many stunning locations around the world, but Venice is the main setting for the end of the film. Fortunately, you can watch the movie knowing that you’ll get to see a lot of Venice, so it’s worth it. Besides, it’s a great movie anyway!

The Tourist (2010)

This film is very special to me. Though I’ve already considered whether I should bury it in a specially created “Other films set in Venice” section at the end of this article. Or whether I should make a joke out of the German director’s name: Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck.

But then I realized that The Tourist has one key element that makes it worthy of a place on this list: the cinematography is stunning, offering gorgeous views of the canal-strewn city. This is The Tourist’s unique selling point – and, unfortunately, its only feature.

Starring Hollywood elite Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, The Tourist is all about two apparent strangers: Frank, a lonely Wisconsin math teacher on vacation, and Elise Clifton-Ward, an undercover Scotland Yard agent. The plot of this film is unfortunately a mess, but its staging is second to none if you just want to stare at Venice.

The film can honestly be enjoyed more when it’s on mute and the mindless dialogue doesn’t distract from the Venetian setting.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

The final entry on my list of the best movies set in Venice is one that I’ve rewatched several times since its release: Spider-Man: Far from Home. Or in other words, Peter Parker’s European vacation.

In Far From Home, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is still suffering from the aftermath of the events of Avengers: Endgame. He jumps at the chance to escape his problems with a class trip to Europe, ending up in Venice, Austria, Prague, Berlin, the Netherlands and London.

Right at the beginning of the film, he’s in Venice and thanks to state-of-the-art technology and drone footage, there are plenty of beautiful shots of Venice.

Chief cinematographer Matthew J. Lloyd said of the city that it has a “bright, pastel atmosphere where the light comes through and hits a building. It bathes people in this warm, sandy light.” This warm and colorful atmosphere is reflected very well by the film and shows Venice in a completely different light. (What a bad pun…)

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And these are my 10 favorite movies set in Venice that I find very inspiring for my stays in Venice. Are you planning a trip to Venice? Or do you have a movie tip for me to add to my list of Venice movies? Feel free to let me know!