The usual appointment with is back on Rai 1 The Year to Comelor variety and music show broadcast live on the evening of December 31st. The show, hosted by Marco Liorni, will accompany spectators with musical guests, performances and countdowns towards the new year.
On Canale 5, however, the appointment with is renewed New Year’s Eve in Music, the variety show live from Piazza Libertà in Bari, hosted by Federica Panicucci together with Fabio Rovazzi. The program offers live performances by famous artists and hits for all tastes, with moments of entertainment until midnight and beyond.
Good cinema on the small screen
Among the films in prime time on December 31st we highlight New cinema paradise by Giuseppe Tornatore, on Rai Movie, the Disney classic Lady and the Tramp on Rai 2, on first TV on Rai 3, The Palace directed by Roman Polański, set in the Swiss hotel where the director himself spent December 31, 1999 waiting for the new millennium; the comedy New Year’s Eve in New Yorkdirected by Gerry Marshall, with Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hilary Swank and Ashton Kutcher on Rete 4. And on Tv2000 at 10.10pm, The Bible by John Huston.
Appointments with faith on TV2000
To close the year with a moment of reflection and prayer, TV2000 dedicates the entire day to religious functions:
10am – Live from the Vatican General audience of Pope Leo XIV
5pm – Live from St. Peter’s Basilica First vespers and te deum in thanks for the past year presided over by Pope Leo XIV
9pm – Live from Catania Mass for peace, at the Church of San Benedetto. Presided by Mgr. Luigi Renna, Archbishop of Catania. On the occasion of the 59th World Day of Peace, promoted by the Episcopal Commission for social problems and work, justice and peace, Italian Catholic Action, Acli, Agesci, Caritas Italiana, Focolare Movement Italy, Libera and Pax Christi Italy.
The traditional end-of-year message from the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella it will be broadcast at 2.30am live on the three Rai networks, on Canale 5, 7 and Tv2000.
The great concerts of January 1st
From “Nessun dorma” to “Casta Diva”, passing through “Va’ pensiero” and the inevitable toast from “Traviata”. It is a program that crosses the great classics of the Italian opera tradition that of the twenty-third edition of New Year’s Eve concert at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, which Rai Cultura offers on Thursday 1 January at 12.20 pm live on Rai 1. Repeats on Rai 5 always on the same day, at 9.20pm and again on Sunday 4 January at 8.00am. Michele Mariotti is called to lead the Orchestra and Choir of the Teatro La Fenice this year, making his debut on the podium of the Venetian institution. The orchestra conductor from Pesaro, awarded the 36th Abbiati Prize, currently holds the role of Musical Director of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. Next to him on stage are the soprano Rosa Feola and the American tenor Jonathan Tetelman, engaged in arias and duets taken from works by Puccini, Rossini and Ponchielli. The dance performances are instead entrusted to the Étoiles Eleonora Abbagnato and Friedemann Vogel, who together with the Étoiles, Principal Dancers and soloists of the Theatre.
Between waltzes, polkas and quadrilles, the traditional New Year’s Eve concert by the Vienna Philharmonic this year it is entrusted to the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Canadian maestro currently Musical Director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York and of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The event is proposed by Rai Cultura on Rai 2 Thursday 1 January 2026 at 1.30 pm. There will be two reruns on Rai5: always on New Year’s Day at 10.20pm and on Saturday 3 January at 8.00am. For Nézet-Séguin, who boasts a consolidated collaboration with the Wiener Philharmoniker – he made his debut there in 2010 at the Mozart Week in Salzburg – this is however the first experience conducting the prestigious event at the beginning of the year, which since 1939 has been held every January 1st in the splendid golden hall of the Musikverein. The Concert offers a brilliant journey through the Viennese musical tradition, which opens with the Overture from the operetta Indigo und die vierzig Räuber by Johann Strauss fils. Alongside this, as usual, dance pieces such as waltzes, polkas and marches by Josef and Eduard Strauss, Carl Michael Ziehrer, Josephine Weinlich, Florence Price and by Johann Strauss son are also performed, whose Bat Quadrille op. 363 (Fledermaus-Quadrille) and the Galopp Der Karneval in Paris op. 100.
Films to start 2026 off right
The first evening of January 1st proposes again Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on Rai1. And then again The first Christmas with Ficarra and Picone on channel 5, The empire of the sun by Steve Spielberg on La 7, the miniseries Mary of Nazareth on Tv2000, on Iris Three Kingsstarring George Clooney, set during the Gulf War.
A stunning first vision
For the first time Martin Scorsese’s film on Rai 3 Killers of the Flower Moon, with Leonardo di Caprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, who was the first native to win an Oscar for best leading actress. Among the crimes committed against the indigenous populations of the United States, the one orchestrated to eliminate the Osage has chilling contours: after the discovery of oil deposits in their territory, they became very rich, but they were forced to have white legal guardians. Who to take possession of their riches killed them one after the other, simulating clumsy accidents that no one investigated. This umpteenth black page in American history was made known by the book The Red Earth Assassins. Martin Scorsese turned it into a film in which Robert De Niro returns to his prime as an entrepreneur who pretends to be a friend of the Osage while plotting their death. It is he who convinces his nephew to marry Mollie, who first kills her sisters and mother one after the other and then poisons. All true, all absurd, for a story that outrages, but which is necessary to know.
