10 Famous Opera Songs in Movies

Ellie and Carl had always planned to visit Paradise Falls in South America but a long life had diminished their savings.

Carl decides to go by himself. He astonishes his neighbours by tying hundreds of helium balloons to the house so that he can fly there in comfort of his own home with all of his belongings.

However, a local explorer scout, Russell has accidentally stowed away in the house and travels with Carl on his great adventure into the wilds of the jungle.

The film Pretty Woman is a modern day fairytale with shades of Cinderella and My Fair Lady.

Businessman Edward is spending the week in Los Angeles for work and hires Hollywood Boulevard prostitute, Vivian, to be his escort for the week to various work events. Vivian turns to hotel manager, Barney, and his team for help with her clothes and social skills. And over the week Edward and Vivian fall in love.

Julia Roberts was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for this film.

Released in 1979, Apocalypse Now was nominated for 9 Academy Awards and won for Best Cinematography and Best Sound.

Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness, the film follows the journey of a US Soldier, Willard, played by Martin Sheen, who is given a secret mission is to find and kill Colonel Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando, a rouge Special Forces soldier who has set up his own private army deep in the Vietnamese jungle. Willard, accompanied by a group of soldiers, travel away from the relative safety of Saigon and journey by boat down the Nung River deeper into the jungle and come face to face with the horror of the Vietnam War.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron is the sequel to the smash hit movie The Avengers which the Marvel superheros – Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye and others team up to save the planet.

In this film Ultron, a peacekeeping program created by Tony Stark/Iron Man, becomes sentient after AI from Loki’s scepter is added to it. Ultron decides that to make the world better, he needs to kill all the humans. The Avengers team up again to prevent the destruction of humankind.

Happy Feet Two is a sequel to the Academy Award-winning animated film Happy Feet, Antarctica is again the setting for more Penguin adventures.

A part of their glacier breaks off, stranding the “Penguin Nation”. Mumble and Gloria’s son, Erik, and some of his friends, who had run away from home, are now on the outside looking in trying to figure out how to save their family and the rest of “Penguin Nation”.

The film features the voices of Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Hank Azaria, Alecia Moore (Pink), Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Sofia Vergara, Common, Hugo Weaving, Magda Szubanski, Anthony LaPaglia, Richard Carter and Benjamin Lil P-Nut Flores, Jr.

The film is based on a memoir of the same name. It is the story of Elizabeth “Liz” Gilbert who after a painful divorce, realises that she needs to find herself before she can move on with her life.

For her ‘Eat’ section, she travels to Italy to reconnect with her love of food where she indulges in all the pasta, wine and ice-cream. She then travels to India for her ‘Pray’ section. There she stays in an ashram and tries to find spiritual peace. Finally, she travels to Bali where she rediscovers ‘Love’ in the form of Brazilian Felipe.

In Despicable Me 3, Gru is now married to Lucy and they are part of the Anti-Villain league. However, they are fired because they’re unable to capture the super-villain Balthazar Bratt who has stolen the biggest diamond in the world.

Gru discovers his long-lost brother Dru is a successful and rich super-villain. Gru persuades Dru to steal the diamond from Bratt with the plan to give it to the Anti-Villain league.

Set in Italy, Luca is a coming of age film about a young boy. The eponymous Luca is half-human/half sea monster. He lives underwater off the coast of the Italian city of Portorosso.

Luca’s parents want to keep him safe from fishermen so he is not allowed out of the water. Luca spends his days bored herding fish. However, when Luca meets Alberto another half human who has been out of the water, Luca defies his parents and follows him to the surface. Luca has a summer of Italian adventures filled with ice-cream, pasta and scooters.

Based on the Anne Fine novel, Madame Doubtfire, the film – Mrs Doubtfire – is the story of Daniel, an American actor, who disguises himself as a elderly Scottish woman to take the job of the family housekeeper to his three children so he can spend more time with them after his divorce.

The film won an academy award in 1994 for Best Makeup.

Turandot was written in Italian by Giacomo Puccini it premiered at La Scala opera house in 1926 after the death of the composer.

The aria, Nessun Dorma (in English, “None shall Sleep”) is in the final act of Turandot. The princess Turandot challenges all prospective suitors to three riddles. The opera revolves around the first prince to succeed in solving her riddles.

In Act 3, the Princess admits that she still does not want to marry the prince. He offers to waive the marriage if she finds out his real name before the next day. She tells everyone in her kingdom that they shall not sleep until the name is discovered. The aria is sung by the prince as he realises dawn is coming and he is going to win (in Italian, Vincerò!).

Nessun Dorma was popularised in the UK in 1990. The BBC chose Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti’s 1972 version sung with the London Philharmonic Orchestra as the theme music for Italia 90 – the Men’s FIFA World Cup held in Italy that year.