Romanzo Criminale

Romanzo Criminale – La serie - is a television series Italian based on the eponymous novel by judge Giancarlo De Cataldo, and it is the second adaptation of the film Romanzo Criminale directed by Michele Placido. The first series quickly achieved cult status in Italy.

This is the second fiction series after Quo Vadis, Baby? that was produced by Sky and broadcast on Fox Crime, Sky One and on Sky Arts with English subtitles in 2012.

The series is set in about 1977-89 and follows a criminal gang in Rome that has a near monopoly of the city's heroin trade. Most of the characters use the Romanesco dialect. The gang is led by three old friends, Libanese, Freddo and Dandi.

As well as its internal feuding, the gang has to deal with the Camorra and Sicilian Mafia that both supply its heroin, the police led by Commissioner Scialoja and the Italian secret services. The plotline is based on the Banda della Magliana of the 1970s-90s.