Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti) and Claudia (Monica Vitti) are on the roof terrace of a church facing the majestic Baroque setting of Noto Cathedral, Sicily. “What a fantasy, what a wonder…”, he says, being an architect by profession. Then he adds, “They were concerned about scenic effects. But they had centuries in front of them. We, if we are lucky, have but a few months.” It is through this realization of the ephemeral duration of contemporary architecture that the protagonist of Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie L’Avventura (1960) justifies his surrender, his renunciation. He stopped designing and dreaming, he confesses, “because it is not easy to admit that a red floor looks good in a room when you are convinced of the opposite, but the lady wants it red.”

There, on the roof terrace of a church, among the ropes used to ring the bells, one of the most interesting and fascinating moments in the history of the relationship between cinema and architecture takes place. One of those moments in which the power of architecture leads cinema to reflect on the forms, purposes, and goals of human creativity. However, terraces have always been special places in cinematic dramaturgy: not only for what happens there, but also for how they are furnished and positioned. 

Another emblematic terrace is also featured in the same movie. It belongs to the villa where all the characters are reunited after the dramatic cruise to the Aeolian Islands that saw the mysterious disappearance of one of them. Every detail — from the architecture to the furnishings — reflects a neo-bourgeois taste that interacts with the pre-existing noble structure. The terrace overlooks a dense garden, with a concrete balustrade and flooring featuring a black and white geometric Greek-style pattern. The furnishings include a central bamboo table surrounded by a two-seater bamboo sofa, with a backrest woven in intricate patterns, and an armchair. There are also two 1950s-style wicker lounge chairs with curved armrests, a small sofa, a tufted ottoman with buttons and a ruffled skirt skimming the floor. A waiter in a white livery pours fruit juice into crystal glasses from an ornate crystal pitcher with a silver lid and spout. A beautiful shot frames Monica Vitti and her friend sitting on the small sofa, at the center of the stage. Beside them, a two-shelf bar cart with large wheels carries liquor bottles. In the background stands a column-style fountain sink, with a plump white ceramic cherub on the wall and two symmetrical plant holders on either side. The ancient and the modern coexist in an outdoor social ritual that is part of the daily performance of this wealthy and elegant humanity. 
 

Among the most iconic terraces in Italian cinema are undoubtedly the one from La Dolce Vita (1960) by Federico Fellini and the one that opens The Great Beauty (2014) by Paolo Sorrentino. In the first case, we see a penthouse terrace with white tiled flooring, rope hammocks, a foam mattress lying on the ground, a classic wooden deck chair with striped fabric, concrete planters, palm trees, a garden swing with sunshade, square parasols, and a white tubular metal bar cart with wheels. It is here that a group of friends sunbathe, excited by the noise of the blades of two helicopters flying over the city, carrying a wooden statue of Christ over St. Peter’s Square. The women try to reach out to the journalist (Marcello Mastroianni) and the photographer on the helicopter, but the engine’s roar and the sound of the rotors make conversation impossible.

On the terrace of The Great Beauty (located in a historic building on Via Bissolati, in Rome), it is the techno remix of A far l’amore comincia tu by Raffaella Carrà, reworked by Bob Sinclair, that gives the impression that the ritual of dance connects every guest to the others. The light from an advertising sign cuts through the darkness and illuminates the crowded space, adorned with a few but striking decorative elements: large white vases with stylized tree-shaped figures featuring thin, linear trunks and cloud-shaped, translucent plastic canopies, along with small ochre-colored ottomans with luminous rings at their base. As the party ends and the bodies disappear into a cold, pale dawn, the empty terrace conveys a sense of metaphysical loneliness.

In the same movie, far more intimate and welcoming is the terrace where Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo) retreats. Located on the top floor of a 1920s building overlooking the Colosseum, this space is lined with terracotta pots filled with flowering plants and lemon trees, illuminated by lanterns. A cozy sitting area with wicker furniture and cushions featuring geometric patterns occupies one corner. Jep lounges lazily on a freestanding wooden and white rope hammock, sunglasses on and his ever-present drink in a tumbler in hand.

Even in his most recent movie, Parthenope (2024) Sorrentino does not give up making the terrace a key setting in the story. It is enough to think of the outdoor terrace of the protagonist’s family villa, overlooking the sea, accessed through a large glass door with petrol-blue frames and colored panes. The floor is made of tuff stone, bordered by large arches with a base wide enough to sit on. Here, we see Parthenope reading a book by John Cheever while her mother and brother carry pots of food to the table. At the center stands a beautiful wrought-iron table covered with a white tablecloth featuring lace inserts, elegantly set and surrounded by white wrought-iron chairs with cream-colored cushions. On the same terrace, decorated with alternating black and white sculpted heads on the low pillars, there is an airy white wrought-iron canopy with delicate curls and a yellow mattress with a blue and white striped pillow. It is here that we see Parthenope, lying down and absorbed in her reading, wearing a swimsuit — the same one we later see hanging to dry over the back of a Thonet chair on another balcony with glossy tiles, a space that feels almost metaphysical were it not for the sensuality of the moment when Parthenope’s lover approaches the swimsuit to inhale the scent of the girl he loves. Once again, the terrace becomes a stage for life’s desires and rituals.

However, among Italian directors, it is Ferzan Ozpetek who has called himself “the king of terraces.” Among the many terraces that populate his movies, the most unforgettable remains the one in His Secret Life (2001), located in the Ostiense district in Rome. It is a kind of open square, a social place, the vibrant heart of a close-knit group of friends who gather on Sunday mornings in an outdoor area with a grassy carpet, accessible through a large glass window. The space is furnished with white rope hammocks, white seating, and tables adorned with colorful lanterns.

Among the many terraces in Italian cinema, it is essential to remember the one from La terrazza (1980) by Ettore Scola, set among the tiled rooftops of Rome, adorned with white wrought-iron furniture and oval pewter planters filled with daisies. This is where several radical-chic members of Italy’s intellectual left periodically gather to reflect on their failures and lost illusions. Equally memorable — again by Scola — is the terrace from A Special Day (1978) with its muted colors and earthy gray tones. It serves as the backdrop for the first meeting between the weary, resigned housewife played by Sophia Loren and the gay radio broadcaster played by Marcello Mastroianni, on the day of Hitler’s visit to Rome in 1938. In this movie, the terrace becomes a symbolic boundary: it is both a space for connection and distance, a temporary refuge from the rigidity of domestic interiors, yet also an open area exposing the characters to others’ gazes — a reminder that their freedom is only an illusion.

The terrace in A Special Day is a space of connection and suspension, where two lonely souls briefly meet before returning to the melancholy solitude of their everyday lives. A similar symbolic role is played by the balcony in Perfect Strangers (2016) by Paolo Genovese. In a movie about secrets and social masks, the balcony becomes a border between private and public reality, between the desire for honesty and the fear of its consequences. As the movie’s tension builds, the balcony is the only place where the characters can step away and look beyond the suffocating microcosm of their smartphones. 

Other unforgettable terraces include the balcony in Fists in the Pocket (1965) by Marco Bellocchio, overlooking the mountains. It features a wrought-iron railing and curved, woven wicker furniture. Here, Giulia (Paola Pitagora) sunbathes seated on a wicker armchair, her legs resting on the railing — the same balcony from which she and her brother Alex (Lou Castel) will throw out the old family furniture after the funeral of their elderly, blind mother. More recently, there is the rooftop terrace from Io sono Tempesta (2018) by Daniele Luchetti, atop a luxurious hotel overlooking the Vatican (the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Monte Mario), complete with a jacuzzi where Marco Giallini’s character relaxes in the evening, living his life in the hotel’s opulent surroundings.

The most iconic terrace in the Italian and Mediterranean tradition, however, is found in a movie directed by an English-speaking filmmaker: in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) by Anthony Minghella. The villa where Dickie (Jude Law) and Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) live is a house with traditional Italian architecture — light stone walls, green shutters, and a breathtaking view of the blue waters of the Amalfi Coast. The sea-view terrace often serves as the setting for breakfast or outdoor lunches, with white tablecloths, ceramic dishes, and a typically Mediterranean atmosphere. The terrace is furnished with wrought-iron chairs and tables of varying shapes, along with terracotta-colored ceramic pieces and a geometric pattern of gray tiles. There are wicker chaise longues with integrated armrests, topped with white cushions and square pillows with a dark blue border and light blue centers. A pergola covered in climbing plants provides some shade, while Mediterranean plants in terracotta pots enrich the space with warm, natural colors.

This idyllic habitat, however, does not always offer the characters the peace and serenity they seek. But that is the law of cinema: happy stories, even when set in stunning locations, rarely captivate audiences. People are drawn more to tales of defeat, downfall, and failure. This truth is confessed by the vibrant Pepa (Carmen Maura), the protagonist of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) by Pedro Almodóvar, from her magnificent penthouse with a stunning view of Madrid — a space filled with plants, ducks, chickens, and eccentric objects of every kind. As she reflects on her situation, she says: “It has been months since I moved into this penthouse [...] I did it because the world was falling apart, and I wanted to save it — and save myself. I felt like Noah: I wanted to raise a pair of every species of animal in the coop I set up on the terrace. But in the end, I could not save the pair that mattered most to me: my own.”