Don Bosco at the Movies

Don Bosco at the Movies

The most famous films dedicated to the Saint of Youth

(ANS – Rome - January 30, 2025) – Don Bosco is a world-famous saint, and it’s not difficult on the web to come across films of various kinds dedicated to him. His great charm and charisma have conquered millions of people around the world, and his figure has also sparked the interest of many film directors and authors, who have retraced his life, death, and miracles, thus bringing the Saint of Youth closer to the general public. Here’s a review of some of the most famous and professional film works dedicated to him.

Among the oldest films on the life of St. John Bosco is Goffredo Alessandrini’s 1935 work entitled Don Bosco. Starring Gian Paolo Rosmino, Maria Vincenza Stiffi, Roberto Pasetti, Ferdinando Mayer, Vittorio Vaser, and Felice Minotti, the film recounts Don Bosco’s life from his birth to his canonization in 1934. It traces the birth of the Oratory, the various confrontations with the neighborhood and local authorities, the start of the professional and agricultural schools, the foundation of the Salesian Congregation, until his death in 1888.

Years later, in 1987, Giovanni il ragazzo del sogno was released, distributed by the Salesian publishing house Elledici (LDC), starring Luigi Rosa, Michela Zio, Michele di Mauro, and Paolo Bramante, directed by Giuseppe Rolando. At the center of the work is the life of young John Bosco: his childhood as a peasant at the Becchi farmstead, his studies in Chieri, the many jobs he did to support himself, his entry into the seminary in Turin under the guidance of Fr. Cafasso. The photograph was particularly popular at the time, portraying Chieri in the first half of the 19th century (then a town of 9,000 inhabitants, halfway between farming tradition and the development of industry, particularly textiles) and the surrounding countryside.

Don Bosco by director Leandro Castellani, with actors Ben Gazzara, Patsy Kensit, Piera Degli Esposti, and Philippe Leroy, came a year later. Here we see an elderly Don Bosco, whose thoughts return to childhood. He retraces all the actions he took to realize his greatest dream: to dedicate himself completely to the young. The film tells how Don Bosco, with the help of Fr. Borel and other priests, began to lay the first bricks on what would later become the Salesian community, welcoming all the young people of Turin to the Oratory. Despite his good intentions, he was hindered several times by politicians and revolutionaries, but Don Bosco always managed to get away with it. He then went to Pope Pius IX and, years later, to Pope Leo XIII to seek support for his community, which in the meantime had grown so large and had many followers. In the end Don Bosco thanks with a prayer our Lady, whom he considered the source of his work of charity, and then dies.

The 2004 Raiuno (RAI) miniseries Don Bosco, directed by Lodovico Gasparini and starring Flavio Insinna, Lina Sastri, Daniel Tschirley, Lewis Crutch, and Charles Dance, was very popular. Narrated in flashback, it’s the story of a vocation lived in joy and optimism, despite the difficulties that litter Don Bosco’s path. Always intent on saving the desperate youth of Turin, Don Bosco suffered ostracism from the hierarchies. We see in the series how Abp. Lorenzo Fassati [an invented name, representing Abp. Lorenzo Gastaldi] forced Don Bosco to dissolve the Salesian Congregation [that didn’t really happen], which he had founded, on the advice of the repentant and dying Vicar Clementi. The news threw the priest, already ill, into despair, almost killing him. Having recovered, Don Bosco made an official apology to Fassati [something like that did happen], teaching his boys the value of humility. The Pope then definitively approved the Salesian Congregation.

Finally, 2012 saw the release of Maìn - La casa della felicità, directed by Simone Spada and starring Gaia Insenga and Paolo Civati. Focusing mainly on the life of Mother Mazzarello, the film devotes ample space to her encounter with Don Bosco in 1864, which led ‘Maìn’ to found the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians.

[Editor’s note: Salesiana Publishers sells the Alessandrini movie on DVD.  The Gasperini and Castellani movies may be available from Ignatius Press.]