Discover the best things to do in Rome this November, with the main events, festivals, and exhibitions.

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November brings some of the year’s most interesting for anyone who loves culture. As settles over the city, the calendar fills up: Roma Jazz Festival takes over the Auditorium and Casa del Jazz for most of the month, Romaeuropa Festival reaches its final weeks, Roma Arte in Nuvola gathers around 140 galleries at EUR, and for one night Museums in Music keeps the city’s museums open until 2am. Later in the month, the Vienna Philharmonic and Riccardo Muti perform at Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

Here are the best events in Rome in November 2026, from to concerts, festivals and film.

November in Rome brings the at full strength, plus one of the most anticipated openings of the season.

The big news is Marina Abramović at the Galleria Nazionale, opening November 18 for the artist’s 80th birthday. The show pairs landmark performances such as The Artist Is Present with her Transitory Objects, stone and crystal structures that visitors can sit or lie on. On view until April 4, 2027.

remains the season’s biggest draw, the first monographic show devoted to the Russian master of abstraction in Rome in 25 years. Advance booking is recommended.

The two big October openings are also on view: , with over 140 works from the Nakamura Collection tracing his path from New York subway drawings to his final paintings, and , the first monographic exhibition ever devoted to the Florentine master of Mannerism, built around loans from the Uffizi. At the Museo Storico della Fanteria, Renato Guttuso: Mediterranean Soul pays tribute to one of the great figures of 20th-century Italian painting.

At Palazzo Esposizioni, Richard Avedon: In the American West 1979-1984 shows all 110 portraits from the celebrated series. Ranch hands, miners, waitresses and drifters were photographed outdoors against a plain white backdrop, and the prints hang alongside working Polaroids and letters from the archive. On view until January 31, 2027.

Near the Spanish Steps, PM23, the cultural space of the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti, presents AURA, which pairs Valentino Garavani with the Polish painter Ewa Juszkiewicz, on view until February 21. Just outside, in Piazza Mignanelli, stands Selva, a work by Edoardo Tresoldi, the artist known for his wire-mesh architectures.

Still on view: , in its final weeks until December 13; FOOD. The Taste in Art at the Chiostro del Bramante; , which opens the five-year cycle Catastrophe and Wonder with JR, Bill Moran and chef Fulvio Pierangelini; and , free to visit at La Vaccheria in EUR through March 2027.

What better way to feel the heartbeat of Rome than catching some live music? Alongside the Roma Jazz Festival, November is packed with concerts for every taste.

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Rome’s historic jazz festival reaches its 50th edition with a programme dedicated to the centenary of Miles Davis. Paolo Fresu opens on November 1 with Kind of Lives, followed by Kurt Elling with the Yellowjackets, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Gonzalo Rubalcaba with Hamilton de Holanda, Erik Truffaz and Gregory Hutchinson. Italian names include Enzo Favata, Rosa Brunello and Chiara Civello with Clap! Clap!. Two concerts outside Rome celebrate John Coltrane’s centenary. The festival closes on November 24 with Jason Miles and 100 Miles for Miles Davis.

Auditorium, Alcazar, Casa del Jazz
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The MedFilm Festival brings Mediterranean cinema to the heart of Rome. Now in its 32nd edition, running from November 5 to 15, 2026, MedFilm is the city’s longest-running film festival and showcases films from the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa. The programme includes premieres, international feature and short film competitions, retrospectives, masterclasses and panel discussions. This year it opens with the Italian premiere of Only Rebels Win by Danielle Arbid, and Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi receives the Lifetime Achievement Award. Screenings and events take place at The Space Cinema Moderno, the festival’s main venue, as well as Teatro Palladium, Archivio Flamigni and Casa del Cinema.

The Space Cinema Moderno, Teatro Palladium, Archivio Flamigni, Casa del Cinema
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November brings the closing weeks of Romaeuropa Festival, which runs until November 15. The 41st edition is one of the richest ever, with 100 shows, 240 performances and around 1,000 artists from all over the world. There’s still time to catch the final part of the programme, with music, theatre, dance, digital arts and work created for younger audiences, staged at venues across the city.

more than 20 places in Rome
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Roma Arte in Nuvola, Rome’s international fair of modern and contemporary art, returns to Fuksas’s Nuvola in EUR for its sixth edition from November 20 to 22, 2026. Around 140 Italian and international galleries take part, with works ranging from painting and sculpture to photography and contemporary practices, plus the new Approdo Roma section.

Germany is this year’s guest country and presents the group exhibition Viaggio in Italia. Nostalgia dell’Italia, with works by artists including Candida Höfer and Thomas Struth. The programme also includes exhibitions dedicated to Giorgio de Chirico, Corrado Cagli and Hidetoshi Nagasawa, talks, performances and a satellite exhibition at the Casa Museo Mario Praz.

La Nuvola, Eur
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The International Festival of Sacred Music and Art returns to Rome and the Vatican for its 25th edition, from November 21 to 25, 2026. This year’s festival is dedicated to world peace and marks two anniversaries: 400 years since the dedication of St. Peter’s Basilica and 800 years since the death of St. Francis of Assisi.

It opens with a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on November 21, followed that evening by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Riccardo Muti, performing Mozart’s Coronation Mass at the . The programme continues on November 22 with the choir of the Escolanía de El Escorial, again at Saint Paul Outside the Walls, followed by Monteverdi’s Vespers performed by the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir at the on November 23, and a Mozart evening at the on November 24 to mark the 270th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

St. Peter’s Basilica, Papal Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
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On Saturday, November 21, 2026, Museums in Music returns for its 16th edition. From 8pm to 2am, Rome’s museums stay open late for concerts and dance performances, including the Capitoline Museums, Centrale Montemartini, the Ara Pacis Museum, the Trajan’s Markets, the Museo di Roma at Palazzo Braschi and the museums of Villa Torlonia. State and private museums, foreign academies, universities and other cultural spaces across the city also take part.

Museums across Rome
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Manifesto Fest celebrates its tenth anniversary with four nights of electronic music, sound experimentation and visual arts, spread across three venues in Rome. The line-up mixes established names and new voices, including Kode9, Quantic, Mad Professor, Alessandro Cortini, Populous, Carmen Villain and Maria Arnal. It opens on November 25 at the Nuovo Teatro Orione, moves to the Chiesa Valdese on Via IV Novembre on November 27, and closes with two nights at Monk on November 28 and 29.

Nuovo Teatro Orione, Chiesa Valdese, Monk
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Plenty of restaurants and venues in the Eternal City serve a classic Thanksgiving dinner, so you can celebrate with your loved ones without missing out on a thing.

From November 27 to December 4, Rome becomes the capital of independent cinema with the 25th edition of the RIFF, the Rome Independent Film Festival. For a quarter of a century, the festival has brought new international cinema to the city, with Italian premieres of feature films, documentaries, shorts, animation and experimental work, plus a pitch session for screenplays. This year the programme also hosts the second chapter of the Climate Future Film Festival.

Nuovo Cinema Aquila, Cinema Palazzo San Lorenzo
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The new season at the opens on November 27 with Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, returning to the Costanzi after 58 years in a new production conducted by Music Director Michele Mariotti and directed by Rafael R. Villalobos, making his Rome Opera debut. The season brings 12 new productions across opera and dance, with nine operas, two operas in concert featuring Anna Netrebko and Cecilia Bartoli, seven ballets, three special events and two tours by the Ballet Company. Discover the full programme at operaroma.it.

Rome Opera House
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Explore Rome’s markets in all their variety: and collectibles, artisan craft, independent fashion and design, Japanese culture and retro gaming, with something for every taste as the holiday season approaches.

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