Some of the best tv shows from Rai 1 include Sanremo Music Festival and Eurovision Song Contest, airing in 1951 and 1956 respectively. Showcasing over 20 shows from 1951 up until 2025, Rai 1 stands as a beacon of television excellence. Check out the most acclaimed shows on Rai 1, with a catalog of over 20 series updated for January 2026.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Features a man known as "Mr. Linea" drawn as a single outline of an infinite line, which encounters various obstacles during his walking, and often turns to the cartoonist, represented as a live-action hand holding a pencil, to draw him a solution. All episodes are short subjects, ranging from 2:30 to 6:40 in runtime.


In this mini-series in six parts from 1976 the Indian actor Kabir Bedi plays the lead role. Carol Andre plays Lady Marianna Guillonk and as Sandokans best friend Yanez de Gomera we see Phillipe Leroy. The noble prince Sandokan is a fighter of the first rank who are cruel to their enemies, but always loyal to his friends.

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.

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.