The Talented Mr Ripley sees Matt Damon play the charming but penniless Tom Ripley, a man hired by a wealthy magnate to travel to Italy and rescue his son, Dickie (Jude Law), from a life of indolence. Upon arrival, Tom discovers that Dickie has it all - including a beautiful girlfriend, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) - and begins to covet his luxurious lifestyle. Although Tom is sexually attracted to Dickie, the latter soon tires of him, and when Tom begins to find himself excluded from Dickie's coterie, his envy takes a murderous turn. Based on Patricia Highsmith's novel which also provided the inspiration for the French classic 'Plein Soleil' and Wim Wenders' 'The American Friend'. Both The Talented Mr Ripley and Plein Soleil are excellent but in different ways. Minghella's version has a lush Mediterranean sunkissed beauty, complemented by its talented and attractive young cast. Matt Damon enlists the viewer's sympathies and holds onto them until the final phase of the film, when Ripley's psychotic side really takes over. Classy and entertaining.

This is the real story of the mafia – a story that has never been fully told on television before. From the late 1950s onwards the mafia exploited the new opportunities for international travel and banking to turn itself into the biggest and most profitable criminal gang in history. It did so by one commodity: heroin. The Sicilians imported morphine base from the Middle East, turned it into heroin and smuggled it to the US. Their American cousins gave them the franchise to the biggest marketplace in the world – and made sure that they took their cut too. Starting from New York – with its huge American-Italian community, the power base of the American mob – the tentacles of the Sicilian mafia spread across the US. Heroin poured in from Sicily, hidden inside Italian foodstuffs and distributed via pizzerias across the nation. Money flowed the other way. The operation was so big that one gang in Philadelphia alone was laundering $5 million per day. It made the mafia in Sicily wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. This was globalisation, mafia style. It came with a heavy price, though. With money, war followed. Rival mafia clans fought for control of the heroin trade. It left thousands dead on both sides of the Atlantic. Astonishingly, many American and Italian law makers failed to pick up on the mafia’s heroin trafficking – and still more shocking, for a long time both were reluctant to acknowledge organised crime even existed. It took a handful of dedicated crime fighters in the US and Italy – men and women who were prepared to put their lives on the line – to bring the mob leaders to justice. This is the story of the mafia from the inside – from both sides of the criminal divide.

Nowhere fired Shakespeare's imagination quite like Italy. But as Francesco Da Mosto argues in this new two part series, Italian cities meant far more to our greatest author than just a sunlit setting. As Francesco takes us on a journey from North to South, visiting the spectacular locations that shaped the Bard's genius, the series celebrates Shakespeare as a popular entertainer. The emphasis is on accessibility as 'Shakespeare meets holiday adventure' under the blue skies of Italy. As Francesco travels between Venice, Verona, Padua, Milan, Mantua, Florence, Rome, Napoli, Sicily and Capri, considering 'Romeo and Juliet', 'The Merchant of Venice', 'Julius Caesar' and 'The Tempest' and others, there is also input from actors including Emma Thompson, Ciaran Hinds and Mark Rylance.

Italian food’s greatest champion, Antonio Carluccio takes us on a gastronomic tour of Northern Italy to bring us an insider’s view of his native land and its mouthwatering cuisine. Travelling around the north of the country, from the mountains of Liguria to Venice and Verona, Antonio Carluccio takes the best of the old and the most delicious of the modern and brings them together to create food that is as full of passion as it is of flavour. As Antonio returns to his childhood haunts for a family nosh-up, joins a porcini mushroom hunt, cheers on the teams in Venice’s annual gondoliers' race and visits Milan's famous design school, he swaps recipes with chefs, housewives, old friends and even Dominican monks. Inspired by the best ingredients and flavours of Northern Italy, Antonio demonstrates how to make a definitive pesto sauce and an authentic bolognese sauce; he reinterprets traditional dishes including rustic lentil and sausage casserole and pasta with white truffle sauce and also creates exciting new dishes such as polenta with shrimp and an ice cream indulgence called 'the Doges' delight'.

The BBC series The Art of Spain aimed to put Spanish art on the map. We know that Italy and Northern Europe are renowned for their art, but what about Spain? In this absorbing and original series, Spanish art gains centre stage as art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon goes on the road to reveal the fabulous art treasures of the country. Travelling from the south to the north he explores some of Europe's most important artists from Renaissance to Modernist – including Goya, Picasso, Dali, El Greco and Velasquez. And, going 'off the beaten track', he reveals rich insights into the culture and people who live and work with the greatest Spanish art and architecture every day. From Moorish art and the Islamic legacy on Spain and Europe to Modernism, Seville to Barcelona, food and wine, Andrew reveals that Spanish culture is every bit as rich as Italy's, with a more surprising edge.