How to Talk About How Awesome (or Horrible) That Movie Was in Italian

Il film racconta la storia di…

Note: This article was written by a previous contributor - Hannah Jackel. Hannah spent nine lovely months in Viterbo, Italy studying abroad, where she fell in love with the Italian language, culture and food.

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One of the most exciting “field trips” I took when I lived in Italy was to a nearby town to watch the final installment of the “Twilight” series: Twilight, Breaking Dawn Part II. Even though I wasn’t Twilight’s number one fan (okay, I admit, I might have read all of the books in high school…), it was exciting to experience a small slice of America 6,000 miles away from home.

Nearly my entire USAC group signed up for the trip, and after missing a train and a bus from Viterbo to Bomarzo, we were forced to cram into a bunch of volunteers’ cars and drive along the questionably narrow, curvy countryside roads to the theater.

The theater itself was a testament to how different things can be in Italy.

When Americans think of movie theaters, we think of big buckets of buttery, salty popcorn, gallon-sized sodas and huge auditoriums with stadium seating.

This one was far from my concept of what a movie theater was supposed to look like. It consisted of two rooms: one that could be called a concession stand where they served microwaved popcorn (it was my first time seeing a microwave in Italy), and another that served as the auditorium.

Aside from that, the movie was as lame as expected but fun nonetheless.

I didn’t even think about having to discuss a movie’s plot, characters or setting in Italian until the next semester when I had an oral exam where I had to describe another movie my class had watched.

I wish we could have watched Twilight for that exam, because the movie we actually watched was hard to comprehend — let alone recount at the level I was at the time.

But I realize now that being able to talk about movies is a great way to connect. After learning how to express your opinion about movies, you can move on to expressing your opinions about all sorts of other topics.

With that said, here are key phrases and vocabulary words you can use to discuss a movie you watched in Italian (whether the movie was in Italian or not!).

I’ll be using Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II for all of my examples.

HOT TIP: The Italian verb raccontare, to tell or recount, will be your best friend when discussing a movie.

If nothing else, you can talk about the story of the movie.

Follow this format:

— Il film racconta la storia di… – The film tells the story of…

It’s also important to remember that when you are expressing an opinion, you MUST use the congiuntivo. If you need to review this mood, you can click here.