Discover the best of Rai 1 with our list of over 20 series, meticulously updated for April 2026. Some of the best tv shows from Rai 1 include Sanremo Music Festival and Eurovision Song Contest, airing in 1951 and 1956 respectively. A broadcaster of distinction, Rai 1 has aired more than 20 shows between 1951 and 2025.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Blanca Ferrando is a young woman who became blind at the age of twelve, due to a dramatic fire in which her older sister Beatrice died and which was caused by her violent boyfriend, Sebastian. This tragedy made her develop a very strong sense of justice to the point of pushing her to join the police. Blanca is helped by her most trusted friends: her guide dog Linneo, a female bulldog who protects and comforts her in the most difficult moments, and her beautician friend, Stella. After overcoming her work challenges, she finds herself facing sentimental ones: torn between two men, Inspector Michele Liguori, a man of many secrets, and Nanni, a young cook.

Sandokan is a Malaysian pirate who, along with his friend Yanez and their crew, attacks the British forces from his island of Mompracem. During his adventures, he falls in love with Lady Marianna Guillonk, an English-Italian aristocrat.

Fabeltjeskrant [ 'faːbəɫcəskrɑnt] is a Dutch children's television series featuring puppetry and stop motion. Created in 1968 by Leen Valkenier and produced by Thijs Chanowski and Loek de Levita, it ended in 1989 and was broadcast on the Dutch channels NOS, RTL 4 and RTL 8 and on Belgian channel VRT. From 1973 to 1975 it was broadcast also in the United Kingdom, on ITV, with the title The Daily Fable.

The adventures of the unpredictable Martini family led by the tireless Grandpa Libero.

Imma Tataranni is a rather abrasive deputy prosecutor of the Matera Public Prosecutor's Office. She has the fashion sense of a rodeo clown, is gifted with a prodigious memory and used to solving cases with rather unorthodox methods.

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.

In a steampunk London, the great detective Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson routinely crack the most challenging cases — perpetrated more often than not by their nemesis, the proud, bumbling genius Professor Moriarty.

Alice is a clumsy and passionate coroner resident. She fights between life and love complexities. Even tough she still has a lot to learn, she has a special quality: empathy with the victims that leads her to have crucial intuition in the cases that she works on.

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.
