Over the past decade, Giallo-inspired films have found new life among both young audiences and long-time aficionados. Throughout the 2010s, directors across the world paid homage to Italy’s stylish murder mysteries—reinterpreting and expanding the genre’s boundaries. The avant-garde Amer (2009) and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio (2012), and Nicolas Winding Refn’s hyper-stylized The Neon Demon (2016) all reflect this fascination. Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) revived wider interest, while James Wan’s Malignant and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho (both 2021) made the Giallo influence unmistakable. And now, fittingly, the master himself—Dario Argento—is set to release Occhiali neri in February this year. To celebrate his genius, here’s a brief story of Giallo cinema.
A Brief History
Just as American pulp novels took their name from the cheap paper they were printed on, Italian murder mysteries took theirs from I Gialli Mondadori—a series of detective novels with bright yellow covers (“giallo” means “yellow” in Italian). First published in 1929, the series featured translations of Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace, Raymond Chandler, and other English-language writers. It became so popular that “Giallo” soon became shorthand for any mystery or thriller. Italian authors even began writing under English pseudonyms to be included in the collection.
As a film genre, Giallo blends the mystery of 1940s Hollywood noir and the tension of 1960s German Krimi films with something distinctly Italian. Much like the Spaghetti Western reimagined the American frontier, Giallo reworked thriller conventions into something bold, sensual, and surreal.
Mario Bava is often credited as the genre’s pioneer with La ragazza che sapeva troppo (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, 1963) and Sei donne per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace, 1964). The first nods to Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, while the second remains one of the finest examples of Giallo. Together, they established the genre’s template: foreign tourists stumbling upon murders, masked killers, damsels in distress, saturated colors, baroque interiors, and meticulously designed sets. Other defining titles of the 1960s include Luigi Bazzoni’s La donna del lago (The Possessed, 1965), Libido (1965) by Ernesto Gastaldi and Vittorio Salerno, Romolo Guerrieri’s Il dolce corpo di Deborah (The Sweet Body of Deborah, 1968), and the surreal La morte ha fatto l’uovo (Death Laid an Egg, 1968).
The 1970s: The Golden Age
The golden era of Giallo ran from 1970 to 1975—a period when directors competed for the title of Maestro del Giallo. If the Spaghetti Western defined the 1960s, Giallo ruled the following decade. While Italy’s film establishment produced Oscar-winning auteurs like Fellini, Antonioni, and Pasolini, a new generation of filmmakers explored genre cinema—experimenting with editing, sound, and style. With Neorealism fading, Italian directors turned toward genre innovation, birthing the Peplum, Poliziottesco, Euro Spy, Decamerotica, and, of course, Giallo.
Dario Argento’s L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, 1970) brought Giallo international acclaim. With its voyeuristic POV shots, dazzling title, and unforgettable score, it set the standard. Argento followed with Il gatto a nove code (The Cat o’ Nine Tails, 1971), Quattro mosche di velluto nero (Four Flies on Grey Velvet, 1972), and his masterpiece Profondo rosso (Deep Red, 1975). He didn’t invent Giallo—but he perfected it, giving it an aesthetic language all its own: symbolic, stylish, and hypnotically beautiful.
Many early ’70s Giallo films leaned into eroticism, not so subtly blending desire with death. Umberto Lenzi’s Orgasmo (1969), Così dolce… così perversa (So Sweet… So Perverse, 1969), and Paranoia (A Quiet Place to Kill, 1970), along with Massimo Dallamano’s “schoolgirl in peril” trilogy—Cosa avete fatto a Solange? (What Have You Done to Solange?, 1972), La polizia chiede aiuto (What Have They Done to Your Daughters?, 1974), and Enigma rosso (Red Rings of Fear, 1978)—capture this tension perfectly. Sergio Martino’s films, such as La coda dello scorpione (The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, 1971), Lo strano vizio della signora Wardh (The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, 1971), and Tutti i colori del buio (All the Colors of the Dark, 1972), remain some of the most stylish and inventive of the genre.
Giallo’s formula was irresistible, inspiring countless directors to try their hands at it. Standouts include Luigi Bazzoni’s Giornata nera per l’ariete (The Fifth Cord, 1971) and Le orme (Footprints on the Moon, 1975), Francesco Barilli’s Il profumo della signora in nero (The Perfume of the Lady in Black, 1974), and Emilio Miraglia’s La dama rossa uccide sette volte (The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, 1972).
Sensorial Cinema
Argento and his contemporaries created a cinema of the senses—a key reason for Giallo’s enduring appeal and the genre’s success. These films are visually intoxicating: saturated colors, mirrored interiors, and hyper-stylized violence. But they’re equally rich in sound, with unforgettable scores by Ennio Morricone, Stelvio Cipriani, Riz Ortolani, and Nora Orlandi.
Giallo is tactile, too—fetishistic in its textures. You can almost feel the murderer’s leather gloves, the velvet upholstery, the slickness of blood, the fragility of silk. Even taste plays a role: cocktails, spirits, and, most iconically, glasses of J&B whisky appear again and again.
By stimulating every sense, Giallo became a kind of cinematic synesthesia—erotic, violent, and beautiful. It’s this immersive quality that keeps the genre alive today, half a century later, still seducing new generations of viewers and filmmakers alike.
