The Best TV Shows on Rai 1

Inspector Montalbano is an Italian television series produced and broadcast by RAI since 1999, based on the detective novels of Andrea Camilleri. The protagonist is Commissario Salvo Montalbano, and the stories are set in the imaginary town of Vigata, Sicily. In 2012 the series generated a prequel, Il giovane Montalbano.

When the most important friend in her life seems to have disappeared without a trace, Elena Greco, a now-elderly woman immersed in a house full of books, turns on her computer and starts writing the story of their friendship.

When Doctor Andrea Fanti loses 12 years of memories from a brain injury, he finds himself adjusting to a world full of strangers.

An epic crime saga of power, money, violence and corruption. The mafia controls everything through local and international networks like an octopus, and anyone who tries to bring them down pays the ultimate price.

Weed smoking, foulmouthed Rocco Schiavone is an offbeat Deputy Commissioner of the State Police. For disciplinary reasons he is transferred to the Alpine town of Aosta, far from his beloved Rome. The sophisticated but cranky Roman despises the mountains, the cold, and the provincial locals as much as he disdains his superiors and their petty rules. But he loves solving crimes.

Follow Teresa Iorio, a young woman who leaves her rural Sicilian hometown for Milan to find work--and much more--at a newly opened department store: The Ladies' Paradise.

The story of the Medici family of Florence, their ascent from simple merchants to power brokers sparking an economic and cultural revolution. Along the way, they also accrue a long list of powerful enemies.

Dramatizes the Birth, Life, Ministry, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, largely according to the Holy Bible's New Testament Gospels.

The Sanremo Music Festival is the most popular Italian song contest and awards, held annually in the town of Sanremo, Imperia, Italy, and consisting of a competition amongst previously unreleased songs. The Festival was the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Dr. Lele Martini and his family — his children Maria, Ciccio and Anna, and his father Libero — seek to adjust to a new life in the outskirts of Rome.

A fresh look at the life and legacy of the iconic artist Leonardo da Vinci, positing that he was a gay outsider who used his work as a way of hiding his true self. Each episode will examine one of da Vinci’s artworks for hidden clues about a tortured artist struggling for perfection.

Giuseppe Lojacono, suspected of collusion with the mafia, is unfairly thrown out of from Sicily and send to Pizzofalcone (close to Naples), together with other police officers. There, they bring justice back where it was forgotten.

Loosely based on the "Sherlock Holmes" series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Hound turns all the classic characters into dogs. The canine Sherlock Holmes, his assistant Watson, and housemaid Mrs. Hudson work together to solve mysteries. The culprit is usually Professor Moriarty and his gang, who use all kinds of wacky contraptions to steal what they want.

Northern Italy, 1327. The Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young apprentice Adso of Melk reach an isolated Benedictine abbey on the Alps to aid in a dispute between the Franciscan Order and the Avignon papacy. Upon arrival at the abbey, the two find themselves involved in a chain of mysterious deaths.

The Eurovision Song Contest is an international song competition, organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and featuring participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio, transmitted to national broadcasters via the EBU's Eurovision and Euroradio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine the winner.

The life of the 13th-century Venetian explorer who sought to connect the civilizations of China and Europe through trade.

Don Matteo is a thoroughly ordinary Catholic priest with an extraordinary ability to read people and solve crimes. He’s a parish priest who never met an unjustly accused person he didn’t want to help.

Incantesimo is a long-running drama series on Italian television, broadcast on the RAI network. It is set in a hospital called Clinica Life in Turin, Italy, and revolves around the life of the doctors and nurses in the hospital. According to the official website, it is "interested in social themes, the incoherence of daily life, solidarity, love and passion, not forgetting moments of comedy". Incantesimo was first broadcast in March 1997, is now in its 10th series and has broadcast 400 episodes. Incantesimo is also being broadcast on the Chinese CCTV 8 network, dubbed into Mandarin. Many notable Italian actors and actresses have starred in the series including, Orso Maria Guerrini, Delia Boccardo, Kaspar Capparoni, Paolo Malco, Guido Furlani, Alessio Boni, Vanessa Gravina, Paola Pitagora, Alessandra Acciai and Barbara Livi. The series was especially popular in Bulgaria, where it was aired on BNT 1 and Nova Television. In Armenia it was aired on ArmeniaTV and TV5 in Russian, as well as on Shant TV in Armenian.

The investigations and adventures of the Forestry Corps of San Candido.

Edmond Dantes, a sailor falsely accused of treason, is imprisoned in the Château d'If off Marseille. After escaping, and adopting the identity of the Count of Monte Cristo, he plans revenge against those who wrongly accused him.