What if your next favorite movies and series were on RaiPlay? The platform has a catalog waiting to be discovered
The real boom of RaiPlay occurred in 2022 thanks to Mare Fuori. For its third season, the Italian series about young prisoners of the Naples IPM had a first release only on the platform, six episodes that boomed in views, multiplied the following year with the release of the fourth season. Perhaps not everyone will remember, however, that it was with an initial detachment that the symbiotic relationship between the show created by Cristiana Farina and RaiPlay started, which lost the distribution rights of the title after the second season, seeing the episodes transmigrated to Netflix. A short but intense parenthesis, which allowed the series to make its name more known before returning to the base house. And so RaiPlay regained possession of the show and played strategy to bring viewers to its mill. Because besides Mare Fuori, in the catalog, there is much more.
RaiPlay: the boom among young people from Mare Fuori to Normal People
It was in the following year, 2023, that RaiPlay made another big purchase. Exclusively on the platform comes none other than the series that warmed and then tore the hearts of many readers and, then, spectators. Normal People comes to Italy for the first time bringing the story of Marianne and Connell to the small screen. Two restless young people, attracted to each other, struggling with the outside world but never with each other, at least not really. The show launched two of the stars of the show's recent firmament, Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. And if, as with Mare Fuori for a period, RaiPlay no longer had the title in its catalog, here is that faithful in 2025 it returns to its exclusive series so as to always know where to find the characters born from the pen of the writer Sally Rooney.
What to see on RaiPlay this summer 2026: the TV series
It's as if the platform has a flair for poignant stories, especially when it comes to relationships. At the beginning of 2025, another product that touched the public spirit was Ten New Years created by Sara Cano, Paula Fabra and the filmmaker Rodrigo Sorogoyen. Series that develops, as the title suggests, from New Year to New Year, taking that single day of the year as a background to tell about the relationship and the passage of the lives of the protagonists Ana and Óscar, starting at thirty and going on for ten episodes. Ten New Years Eve is therefore another exclusive, just like Normal People and like a show little known to Italian viewers who, however, could recognize the protagonist directly from Netflix's Sex Education. Aimee Lou Wood writes and plays Film Club, in which she plays the role of a 28-year-old who tries to pull herself together while running a film club with her friend Noa (Nabhaan Rizwan) for whom she obviously has feelings. A little-known British miniseries, but one that has been able to find its viewers, especially the visitors of RaiPlay.
The offer of Italian products and the appreciation of the RAI public
For international titles, it is not so easy to stand out given the strong Italian offer and the obvious appreciation that the public reserves for them. Obviously, the classics always pull: in the ranking of the most watched shows it is difficult not to find titles such as Doc - In Your Hands, A Doctor in the Family or a docu-reality like The College, but there are endless series that have made the history of RAI and that all, but absolutely all, are pouring onto the platform. However, if you look carefully, you can see how RaiPlay tries to create space for news as it was in 2022 for Bangla - The Series, a sequel in episodes of the debut of the feature film of the same name by Phaim Bhuiyan in 2019. And it does so in particular when it comes to young works that hope to reach a target audience, such as Hype on a group of aspiring rappers and Never Too Late on a dystopian future with an environmental theme.
Films on RaiPlay: not only exclusives
The same goes for movies. The exclusives are not lacking, although still small, which sometimes include titles with an innate originality such as Mimì - The Prince of Darkness by Brando De Sica or that have received international awards at major festivals such as Little Things Like These, for which the interpreter Emily Watson won the Silver Bear for the best supporting performance. Italian cinema has an important place, as is to be expected, with a varied and enviable library, especially with recent titles. But RaiPlay also doesn't miss out on some excellent collections such as for French authors and classic Hollywood titles - although not always, unfortunately, in the original language. A platform that becomes a basin from which to draw if you are looking for local independent cinema, see that little gem of Margini by Niccolò Falsetti. In which to recover the essentials such as That Afternoon of a Dog's Day with Al Pacino directed by Sidney Lumet or Gilda by Charles Vidor with Rita Hayworth. And where to spend time away, perhaps by the sea with Pauline at Éric Rohmer's beach. If you had never thought that RaiPlay was for you, now is the right time to change your mind. A free, well-stocked platform full of unexpected titles, ready to be discovered.
