Notable series such as Sanremo Music Festival and Eurovision Song Contest from Rai 1 first graced the screens in 1951 and 1956. Showcasing over 20 shows from 1951 up until 2025, Rai 1 stands as a beacon of television excellence. Dive into our updated selection of Rai 1’s finest, featuring more than 20 series as of August 2026.

Alberto Angela leads the dissemination program dedicated to history, art and culture. A historical, archaeological, informative story, with the presence of some protagonists of the Italian cultural or artistic scene.

Italian TV series based on the Maigret detective novels.

Television program of cultural diffusion, born in September 1995, designed and conducted by Piero Angela, development of transmission appreciated Quark.

Jeux sans frontières ("Games Without Borders" in French) was a Europe-wide television game show, based on the French programme Intervilles which was first broadcast in 1962. In its original conception, it was broadcast from 1965 to 1999 under the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which owned the format. In non French-speaking countries, the show had alternative titles. It is also widely known as "It's a Knockout", the title of the BBC's domestic version and national selection for the programme.

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.

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.


Young sailor Edmond Dantès is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes, finds treasure, and reinvents himself as the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on those who betrayed him.

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.

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

Between infotainment and variety, a good morning with Fiorello and Biggio. At the center are the news, the events that happened and those that will happen, commented in an ironic and pungent style but always with lightness and good humor. A condensation of moments of variety, with a high rhythm: music, songs, ballets, duets, gags with guests and playmates, a cast in constant evolution that, day after day, will always see new protagonists. Unusual fifths of the show are via Asiago 10 (in the first season) and Foro Italico (in the second season) and the expected glass, a studio with transparent walls.

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.

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.