Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆/⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
Reviewer Name: Faye Zhang
Date of Review: 20 October 2026
There are no tricks in Mussolini: Son of the Century.
The titular character admits as much, with characteristic theatricality, in the first ten minutes of this miniseries. It’s a dazzling ten minutes that dances from political treatise to historical lesson, full of spectacle and showmanship, of a familiar story about the rise of a man above the ashes of democracy, one we’ve been told time and again through countless modalities.
I think these first ten minutes are a good litmus test on if someone will enjoy Joe Wright’s Son of the Century. It’s difficult enough to recommend a show about Benito Mussolini without sounding a little off—if the past few weeks of my life are anything to go by—but I genuinely believe it to be required viewing for anyone who is concerned, like me, about the rebirth of the far-right this past few years. I feel that what a lot of anti-fascist media tends to get wrong is why fascism seems so intoxicating to people in the first place. That is where Son of the Century‘s greatest trick lies, one that is revealed in these first ten minutes when Luca Marinelli’s Mussolini invites the audience to become confidant and accomplice to his crimes. “Follow me”, he leers into the camera, “you’ll become fascists too.”
Wright’s directoral style certainly lends itself to a watch; his lens of fascism is one of spectacle and pure awe, which I’m certain the real Mussolini and his many acolytes today would agree with. When scenes aren’t washed in a romantic sepia, they’re drenched in vibrant nightlife colors. The soundtrack, composed by Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers, is a delightfully anachronistic and energetic electro-industrial beat. Even the sets sprawl forwards and upwards, more reminiscent of a West End theatre play than of 1920s Italy. This is Wright’s thesis of fascism: an ideology propelled by aesthetics and posturing more than text or dogma. It’s a thesis I find extremely compelling in a world where the White House is posting Little Dark Age edits and influencers hold more sway than congressmen.
At the center of it all is Luca Marinelli’s electrifying performance as Mussolini. We follow his arc from the founding of the Italian Fasces of Combat—a street gang by any other name, devoted to beating up socialists—in 1919, all the way to the fascists’ full seizure of power nearly six years later. Marinelli is strangely delightful to watch, bouncing from political intrigue to rants and more rants with an animalistic tenacity. He is most captivating when he spars with others, be it on the offensive with socialists or liberals; or, more often, on the defense against his allies. And Mussolini is often on the defense, be it from his paramour Margherita Sarfatti (Barbara Chichiarelli) or his fascist subordinates Cesare Rossi (Francesco Russo) and Italo Balbo (Lorenzo Zurzolo). Make no mistake, although Son of the Century is a one-man show, all three are standouts in an already phenomenal supporting cast of characters and sparring partners for Mussolini to levy his abuse on.
It’s enough to almost forget that Mussolini is far from the chess mastermind he thinks himself. Every episode is filled with setbacks for him and his movement, sometimes from the socialists or the Church or the king but most often from his own Blackshirts, all more street thugs than politicos. Wright and Marinelli’s Mussolini is delicately portrayed as a man of many contradictions. More than anything, he’s an actor, and one who desperately tries to outrun how deeply pathetic he is; a pilot who doesn’t know how to fly a plane, a voice for veterans who never fought in the War, a man who loves being hated but hates his need for love. This is to say nothing of how contemptuous Mussolini is fully shown in the show, especially in how he treats the women in his life from his deeply abused secretary to his neglected wife and children. Watching Mussolini is tragedy in the truest form, seeing his ascent to the heights of power in spite of himself.
It’s all enough to overwhelm the viewer, and Son of the Century often is. The last few episodes become something of a slog to tread through, and the show’s politics become ham-fisted, even one-note. “Make Italy great again”, Mussolini tells the viewer with a straight face at one point. At times I wonder if the streaming format works against the miniseries; watching this over the course of a couple days is physically and a little emotionally exhausting. But I wonder if this is the point. After all, exhaustion from an overwhelming, constant cycle of provocative and controversial news is something that Americans are probably familiar with now.
Perhaps the most important scene in Son of the Century is its last, when Mussolini is cornered by his enemies at the most crucial junction of his ascent. He dares just one parliamentarian to stand up and remove him from office, as is perfectly within their rights. Faces flash in front of the camera, with everyone waiting for someone else, anyone else other than themself to make a move. No one does.
Whenever people write of Fascist Italy, this is generally agreed upon to be the formal end of democracy and the tipping point of dictatorship. Fascism doesn’t rise because of itself, in moments of flash or action. It rises because democracy dies, ignobly, out of its own timidness and stagnation.
Sometimes, Son of the Century is more style than substance. But more often than not, style is the substance here, and I’ve yet to see a show interrogate the psychology of fascism as piercingly as here. The Brechtian, hyper-theatrical style may not be to anyone’s telling, and can certainly be exhausting or eye-rolling at times. But it’s not wrong, and I think this is a show that can only exist in this social and political moment. It’s a show that isn’t interested in being a strict history, because that frankly isn’t very useful when we refuse to learn the lessons of a century ago.