Here are a few:
With the Tower:
- Totò at the Giro d'Italia (1948) by Mario Mattoli. A film shot in many Italian cities, Pisa appears as one of the stages that Totò cycles past, acclaimed by a crowd of fans. Among the cyclists in the film there are many champions of the time: Fausto Coppi, Giancarlo Astrua, Gino Bartali, Vito Ortelli, Fiorenzo Magni...
- Souvenir d'Italie (1956) by Antonio Pietrangeli. A comedy starring Alberto Sordi, Vittorio de Sica, Antonio Cifariello and Dario Fo, the latter in the role of a tour guide.
- Noi siamo le colonne (We are the columns) (1956) by Giuseppe D'Amico, Griffon Vittorio De Sica and Antonio Cifariello. The leaning tower appears in the initial scenes, but the film was also shot in other parts of the city, several scenes in the Lungarni, at the Sapienza, in Piazza Dante...
- The girl of the Palio (The Love Specialist) (1957) by Luigi Zampa, starring Vittorio Gassman. Much of the film is shot in Siena, but Pisa also appears as part of the Tuscan Tour that the protagonist, played by Gassman, takes a young American tourist on. The car speeds through Piazza dei Miracoli and you can see all the monuments that Gassman describes to the girl.
- Esterina (1959) by Carlo Lizzani. The protagonist Esterina, played by Carla Gravina, is a country girl who runs away with two truck drivers (played by Geoffrey Horne and Domenico Modugno). Together they tour Italy, also passing through Pisa. One scene from the film is shot in Piazza dei Miracoli and another, a more dramatic one, in Bocca d'Arno.
- Padre Padrone (1977) by the Taviani brothers, based on the novel with the same title by Gavino Ledda. The film won the Palme d'Or for Best Film at the 30th Cannes Film Festival. As a child, Gavino grew up as a shepherd in Sardinia, in the 1940s, but when he arrived in Pisa for his military service, he began his journey of emancipation from his father and rural life. In the film we see him climbing the bell tower and suddenly sitting halfway up the tower, with his feet dangling. In the past there were no safety rails and one could walk along the small loggias around the tower.
- Amici Miei atto II (All my friends part 2) (1982) by Mario Monicelli (Scene of the Tower Service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u86SaLEncos) This scene in Piazza dei Miracoli was filmed on 28 April 1982, with many Pisan extras. The film was shot in the wake of the success of Act I, seven years earlier, and brought together the same cast: Ugo Tognazzi, Philippe Noiret, Renzo Montagnani, Adolfo Celi and Gastone Moschin. The protagonists stage a rescue of the tower: 'Arms, ropes, beams, everything needed to avert a collapse announced as imminent'.
- Figlio mio infinitamente caro (My dearest son) (1985) by Pisan director Valentino Orsini, with Mariangela Melato, Ben Gazzara, Sergio Rubini, and Valeria Golino. A dramatic film about a paternal love for a son. The film is entirely shot in Pisa: not only at the tower, but also in Piazza dei Cavalieri, the Lungarni, the museum of San Matteo, the Campano tower, Borgo Stretto....
- Superman III (1986) by Richar Lester (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQuThW5c4DQ).
- Il Burbero (The Gruff) (1986) by directors Castellano and Pipolo, with Adriano Celentano and Angela Finocchiaro. Film shot between Florence, Siena and Pisa. The protagonist lands at the Pisa airport and we see him in a car passing by Piazza dei Miracoli.
- Ora o mai più (Now or Never) (2003) directed by Lucio Pellegrini, screenplay by Pisan Roan Johnson, with Violante Placido, Elio Germano, and Riccardo Scamarcio. The film is largely shot in Pisa, the protagonists are university students who go from the occupation of a social centre to parties, debates, and end up in the G8 in Genoa. In a scene in Piazza dei Miracoli, a banner unfolds from the top of the tower of Pisa, a symbol of this student’s struggle, with the words: 'This is straight, it is the world that is warped'.
- The Simpsons (2005) episode The Italian Bob. The episode in which they predicted a few years in advance that a McDonalds would be opened next to Piazza dei Miracoli.
- L’amica geniale (My brilliant friend) (7th episode, II season of the TV series, 2019). After graduating from the Scuola Normale Superiore, the young Lenù, one of the protagonists, strolls around Piazza dei Miracoli with her boyfriend.
Without the tower:
- Medea (1969) by Pier Paolo Pasolini (Scene with the Centaur and Giasone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLd9vTMHH0A). Pisa becomes Corinth, and the monuments of Piazza dei Miracoli are filmed only in their lower parts to show only the white walls, and thus taking on a different appearance.
- Good Morning, Babylon (1987) by the Taviani brothers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhbJaawq7AU). The two protagonists, Andrea and Nicola, are Tuscan and come from a family of craftsmen and church restorers. (The names want to remember Andrea Pisano (1290 - 1348) and Nicola Pisano (1223 - 1281), two of the greatest medieval artists who contributed to the art of the period with works such as the Madonna del Latte (Nursing Madonna), the pulpit in the baptistery of Pisa...).
We also want to point out:
- The man who saved the tower Interview by Lorenzo Garzella (Associazione Acquario della Memoria). Leon Weckstein in 1944 was a Sergeant of the allied troops that were arriving from the South to the war front on the Arno. On 22 July, he was sent on a secret mission to Pisa, with the task of observing the tower, to find out if there was a German lookout post installed there. He was ordered to shoot at the tower in case of any suspicious movement. Several times he was about to do that, but he never shouted 'Fire!'.
