Silvio Berlusconi
Biography
Silvio Berlusconi (29 September 1936 – 12 June 2023) was an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as the prime minister of Italy in three governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1994 to 2013; a member of the Senate of the Republic from 2022 until his death in 2023, and previously from March to November 2013; and a member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2022, and previously from 1999 to 2001. At the time of his death in 2023, he had a net worth of US$6.8 billion according to Forbes, making him the 352nd-richest man in the world and the third-wealthiest person in Italy. Berlusconi rose into the financial elite of Italy in the late 1960s. He was the controlling shareholder of Mediaset and owned the Italian football club AC Milan from 1986 to 2017. He was nicknamed Il Cavaliere ('The Knight') for his Order of Merit for Labour. In 2009, Forbes ranked him 12th in the list of the World's Most Powerful People due to his domination of Italian politics throughout more than 15 years at the head of the centre-right coalition. He was the longest serving post-war prime minister of Italy, and the third-longest-serving since Italian unification, after Mussolini and Giovanni Giolitti. He was the leader of the centre-right party Forza Italia from 1994 to 2009, and its successor party The People of Freedom from 2009 to 2013. He led the revived Forza Italia in 2013. On 1 August 2013, Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud by the Supreme Court of Cassation. His four-year prison sentence was confirmed, and he was banned from holding public office for two years. Aged 76, he was exempted from direct imprisonment, and instead served his sentence by doing unpaid community service. Three years of his sentence were automatically pardoned under Italian law; because he had been sentenced to gross imprisonment for more than two years, he was banned from holding legislative office for six years and expelled from the Senate. Berlusconi pledged to stay leader of Forza Italia throughout his custodial sentence and public office ban. After his ban ended, he returned to the Senate after winning a seat in the 2022 Italian general election, then died the following year from complications of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, and was given a state funeral. Berlusconi was known for his populist political style and brash personality; his views and rhetoric, often referred to as Berlusconism, have deeply reshaped the Italian political landscape. In his long tenure, he was often accused of being a a strongman. At the height of his power, Berlusconi was the richest person in Italy, owned three of the main TV channels of the country, and indirectly controlled the national broadcasting company RAI through his own government. He was the owner of Italy's biggest publishing company, several newspapers and magazines, and one of the main football clubs in Europe. At the time of his death, The Guardian wrote that Berlusconi "gathered himself more power than was ever wielded by one individual in a Western democracy". Berlusconi remained a controversial figure who divided public opinion and political analysts. Description above from the Wikipedia article Silvio Berlusconi, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Known For & Full Filmography28 Titles
Drama Series - 2016, 16 episodes • as Self (archive footage)
Expert analysis and dramatic storytelling of recent crime stories.
Drama Series - 2022, 16 episodes • as Self (archive footage)
An outstanding performance featuring brilliant storytelling, high stakes drama, and unforgettable character arcs.
Movie - 2016, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Everything you always wanted to know about pornography (but were afraid to ask).
Drama Series - 2007, 16 episodes • Main Cast Role
An outstanding performance featuring brilliant storytelling, high stakes drama, and unforgettable character arcs.
Movie - 2003, 2h 15m • as Silvio Berlusconi
All the games and behind-the-scenes of Silvio Berlusconi's power, including politics, media and soccer. Citizen Berlusconi is the original version of the documentary written by Andrea Cairola and Susan Gray broadcast on August 21, 2003, during the Wide Angle program of Thirteen/Wnet New York, the major U.S. public TV station Pbs.
Movie - 2018, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
The financial crisis of 2008 was a turning point during which the complexity of our financial system manifested itself. It was a web we had spun for over for more than thirty years ut it turned out to be a giant house of cards. Starting in the US where the Lehman Brothers fell, the crisis spread like wildfire. Only two weeks after Lehman, the crisis infected Europe..
Movie - 2024, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
From his beginnings in real estate to his rise to power, this is the story of Silvio Berlusconi's two decades of ascension, during which he radically transformed Italy's media landscape—and soon its political landscape as well. A fascinating portrait of an opportunistic entrepreneur with extraordinary charisma.
Movie - 2009, 2h 15m • as Silvio Berlusconi
In a country where bella figura is a national pastime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the maestro of media manipulation. Having risen to political primacy with the aid of his Mediaset empire, he now controls 90% of the bel paese’s television channels including the state-run RAI network. Quantity, it seems, does not equal quality. Fed on a diet of semi-naked dancing girls, inane competitions and rickety reality shows built around the most ridiculous of premises, is it any wonder that Italians are becoming a nation of fame-hungry wannabes?
Movie - 2025, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
Alessandra Ferrini examines a photograph from an official visit by Gaddafi to Italy during the Berlusconi era. The film delves into the connections between Italy’s colonial past and its contemporary politics.
Movie - 2005, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
Viva Zapatero! is a 2005 documentary by Sabina Guzzanti telling her side of the story regarding the conflict with Silvio Berlusconi over a late-night TV political satire show broadcast on RAI-3. The show, RAIot (a play on the name of the Italian state public TV: RAI, and the English word riot), lampooned prime minister Berlusconi. Since it wasn't considered a satirical show, but a political one, it was cancelled after the first episode.
Drama Series - 1996, 16 episodes • as Self (archive footage)
The behind-the-scenes story of French television… This documentary unveils the lesser-known history of two audiovisual decades that have shaped today's television. To explain from the break up of the French broadcasting service ORTF, in 1974, to the creation of Arte, via the birth of Canal+, the life and death of La Cinq and the privatization of TF1 — the succession of political, economic and cultural decisions that have shaped what is known as the “PAF” (French Audiovisual Landscape).
Movie - 2011, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
An outstanding performance featuring brilliant storytelling, high stakes drama, and unforgettable character arcs.
Drama Series - 2024, 16 episodes • as Self (archive Footage)
A docuseries about Silvio Berlusconi before becoming prime minister of Italy, from succeeding as a charismatic entrepreneur to changing European TV.
Movie - 2011, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
Lawsuit-proof satirical "unauthorized biography" of Silvio Berlusconi told using only words spoken by the man himself in interviews, rallies, or other public statements.
Movie - 2010, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
A documentary in opposition to the government of Silvio Berlusconi.
Movie - 2026, 2h 15m • as Self
Through the rise of Silvio Berlusconi, this film investigates how private television transformed the public's relationship to information, power and democracy.
Movie - 2009, 2h 15m • as Self
Until the 1970s, Italian cinema dominated the international scene, even competing with Hollywood. Then, in just a few years, came its rapid decline, the flight of our greatest producers, a crisis among the best writer-directors, the collapse of production. But what are the true causes and circumstances of this decline? In an attempt to provide an answer to this question, Di Me Cosa Ne Sai strives to depict this great cultural change. Begun as a loving examination of Italian cinema, the film transformed into a docu-drama that alternates between interviews with the great names of the past and fragments of cultural and political life of the last 30 years. It is a travel diary that shows Italy from north to south, through movie theatres; television-addicted kids; Berlusconi and Fellini; shopping centers; TV news editors; stories of impassioned film exhibitors and directors who fight for their films; and interviews with itinerant projectionists and great European directors.
Movie - 2019, 2h 15m • as Self - Politician (archive footage)
Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 2017. Twenty-five years after the murders of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone, on May 23, 1992, and Paolo Borsellino, on July 19, 1992; and on the occasion of the tributes held in memory of both heroes, skeptical photographer Letizia Battaglia, chronicler of their titanic combat, criticizes the opportunism of shady characters who, like businessman Ciccio Mira, profit from the commemoration of both tragedies.
Movie - 2012, 2h 15m • as Self (archive footage)
Girlfriend in a Coma is a documentary that exposes the dire situation of Italian politics and the process of economic and social decline the country has suffered during the last two decades, treating the decline as a warning of what might happen elsewhere in the West. The decline has occurred amid a collapse of moral values and the victory of “Mala Italia” over “Buona Italia”. It has been lauded as being ground-breaking in its creative combination of animation, interviews and hard facts, and has caused fierce controversy in Italy.
Movie - 2016, 2h 15m • as Self
Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi opens up about his life, including his sex scandals, corruption trials, and friendship with Putin.
Movie - 2014, 2h 15m • as Silvio Berlusconi
An outstanding performance featuring brilliant storytelling, high stakes drama, and unforgettable character arcs.
Movie - 1998, 2h 15m • as Self (uncredited) (archive footage)
Nanni Moretti once again muses on the ebb and flow of life in April 1996, as he is about to become a father for the first time and finds himself unable to focus on his documentary about the upcoming general elections, where the left is heading into a rematch against Berlusconi.
Movie - 2017, 2h 15m • as Self
When the director's life falls apart, he moves into a 1985 VW van, gets back to his Neapolitan roots, and discovers arrangiarsi, making something from nothing.
Movie - 2025, 2h 15m • as Self (archival footage)
Three-part series for ESPN capturing the rise of Silvio Berlusconi from his humble beginnings to the very top – from cruise ship crooner to AC Milan owner to Prime Minister of Italy.
Movie - 2024, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
An outstanding performance featuring brilliant storytelling, high stakes drama, and unforgettable character arcs.
Movie - 2006, 2h 15m • as (archive footage)
An outstanding performance featuring brilliant storytelling, high stakes drama, and unforgettable character arcs.
Movie - 2017, 2h 15m • as Self
In many Western countries, trust between the people and conventional political parties is at a low point while populist movements are on the rise. In Italy, protest party Movimento 5 Stelle, founded by popular comedian Beppe Grillo, vows to send all politicians home and bring power to the people. They win a stunning 25% votes, becoming the most-voted single party in Italy, but what happens when ideals meet parliamentary reality? Can one be uncompromising and effective at the same time? Are internet referendums direct democracy or faceless mob rule?
Movie - 2022, 2h 15m • as Self
The last days of Marco Pannella’s life - indomitable and disruptive protagonist over 60 years of Italian political life - shown through never before seen repertory materials, as well as unpublished interviews and illustrious interventions. A deserved portrait, dedicated to one of the most independent figures of the 900 Italian.