The Best TV Shows on Rai 1

Every Rai 1 Show Ranked From Best To Worst

As of August 2025, we’ve curated over 20 of Rai 1’s premier shows for your viewing pleasure. Highlighting Rai 1’s quality programming, Sanremo Music Festival and Eurovision Song Contest stand out, premiering in 1951 and 1956. Showcasing over 20 shows from 1951 up until 2025, Rai 1 stands as a beacon of television excellence.

  • Inspector Montalbano
    Inspector Montalbano (1999)8.3

    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.

  • My Brilliant Friend
    My Brilliant Friend (2018)8.1

    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.

  • Rocco Schiavone
    Rocco Schiavone (2016)8.0

    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 Octopus
    The Octopus (1984)7.9

    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.

  • Inspector Rex
    Inspector Rex (2008)7.9

    A spin off from the Austrian series Kommissar (Inspector) Rex. Rex the Police Dog moves from Vienna to Rome to continue his career.

  • The Count of Monte Cristo
    The Count of Monte Cristo (2025)7.9

    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.

  • Sanremo Music Festival
    Sanremo Music Festival (1951)7.8

    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.

  • Rischiatutto
    Rischiatutto (1970)7.8

  • Jesus of Nazareth
    Jesus of Nazareth (1977)7.8

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

  • Medici: Masters of Florence
    Medici: Masters of Florence (2016)7.8

    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.

  • Mafia Only Kills in Summer
    Mafia Only Kills in Summer (2016)7.8

    Palermo, 1979. The Giammarresi are a normal family — father, mother, a ten year old son and a daughter of sixteen — struggling with the problems of everyday life. Seemingly ordinary problems, oh, and the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia. Inspired by Pierfrancesco “Pif” Diliberto's film.

  • Blanca
    Blanca (2021)7.7

    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.

  • Un medico in famiglia
    Un medico in famiglia (1998)7.6

    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.

  • The Ladies' Paradise
    The Ladies' Paradise (2015)7.6

    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.

  • Eurovision Song Contest
    Eurovision Song Contest (1956)7.2

    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.

  • Che Dio Ci Aiuti
    Che Dio Ci Aiuti (2011)7.2

    Che Dio ci aiuti is an Italian television TV series.

  • Sherlock Hound
    Sherlock Hound (1984)7.1

    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.

  • Father Matteo
    Father Matteo (2000)6.3

    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.

  • Enchantment
    Enchantment (1998)5.5

    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.

  • One Step from Heaven
    One Step from Heaven (2011)5.2

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