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Netflix’s “The Leopard” is an exuberant celebration of the craft of filmmaking. The 2025 mini series was shot on location in Sicily, Italy, requiring 5,000 extras and 130 carriages, carts, and boats to make it come alive. Combining lavish costuming, scrumptious dishes, and elegant Italian architecture with an intoxicating soundtrack and intricate cinematography, “The Leopard” is a veritable feast for the senses.

“The Leopard” is based on the 1958 novel by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, one of the most important Italian texts of the last century. It tells the story of an aristocratic family in 1860s Sicily during and after the Risorgimento movement that toppled the Bourbon dynasty and instated a Republican form of government that unified all of Italy.

Prince Fabrizio (Kim Rossi Stuart), known as the Leopard, rules over Sicily the way his family has for generations. But when Garibaldi and the Redshirts from Northern Italy conquer the entire peninsula and the invasion of Sicily is imminent, the Prince must decide where his loyalties lie. His nephew Tancredi (Saul Nanni), in spite of his noble heritage, joins the rebellion and declares to his uncle: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

Stuart undeniably steals the show. As his political power wanes, it seems that Prince Fabrizio himself is also weakening, aging before the viewers’ eyes. His deep, resonant voice grows thinner and raspier, losing the undeniable persuasiveness it carried in earlier episodes. However, even as his power and physical strength wane, his love for Sicily grows — as Prince Fabrizio looks out of the window of his carriage at the golden sun pouring its rays down on verdant fields, his eyes are wide and curious like a small child.

Cinematography and symbolism play a crucial role in “The Leopard” — the ancient stone gate of Prince Fabrizio’s estate has a leopard perched on top that reappears in times where the Prince is asserting his authority. The stone leopard appears to crack and wear away throughout the show, paralleling the gradual decay of the Leopard. In the last episode, the camera is low to the ground, allowing the expansive tan stone of Fabrizio’s palace to dwarf the Prince himself, while the leopard statue watches a stream of carriages driving away.

There are moments of incredible complexity in the cinematography — Tancredi, charmingly portrayed by Nanni, blows a kiss that is reflected in the window of a carriage. The lens shifts and we see Prince Fabrizio’s daughter Concetta (Benedetta Porcaroli), smiling back from inside the carriage. In another scene, Concetta crosses behind her father for a moment, and it seems like they are mirror images of each other.

The relationship between Prince Fabrizio and Concetta is the best developed element of “The Leopard,” from the very first scene when the Prince braves a revolutionary horde to get his daughter out of the convent, to the moment in the final episode when Concetta’s face falls as she suddenly realizes that her father is aging rapidly. Concetta grows more similar to her father over the course of the show — she even echoes her fathers’ smirk in a palatial room full of Italy’s most elite politicians, after Prince Fabrizio makes a saucy comment.

In addition to its visual decadence, the soundtrack of “The Leopard” is a masterpiece. “Luci e Ombre” is delightfully suspenseful and creepy, reminiscent of the whimsical horror of the “Coraline” suite, whereas the longing-filled “Si Fussi Aceddu” features an operatic female singer with a tinny, faraway sound, as if she is singing over an old radio. Perhaps the most distinctive element of the music of “The Leopard” is its Wild West twang in pieces like “Amunì” through pizzicato across a myriad of different stringed instruments.

There is one weakness in “The Leopard” — its heavy use of makeup for the female leads. Angelica Sedara (Deva Cassel)is the ambitious daughter of a town mayor who seduces Tancredi. A bit of rouge and castor oil on the eyelashes would have been scandalous enough in the 1860s for this social climber, but “The Leopard” puts Cassel, a brand ambassador for Cartier and Dior, in dark eyeshadows, nude lipsticks, and brushed-out eyebrows. During the last moments of her father’s life, Concetta stares soulfully at Tancredi, with a garish smudge of mascara under her eye.

In spite of the makeup, what truly makes “The Leopard” great is the way it allows the immorality of its characters to lurk in uneasy ambiguity beneath the opulence and tender sentimentality. A gnawing decay and corruption at the heart of society renders even the love between parent and child somewhat eerie — this tale of the futility of human exertion is sure to delight and disturb many.

Although Concetta attempts to assert her liberty from her father in “The Leopard,” ultimately her decision to remain unmarried and supervise the estate emphasizes the continuity of power and the influence of Prince Fabrizio even in death. The ending is both sweet and disturbing, as Concetta, attired in the next decades’ fashion, rides her horse past rows of dirty farmhands who look exactly like the ones who worked for her father all those years ago.

Beneath the deceptive layer of luxury that drenches “The Leopard,” the sickening reality of moral corruption and oppression reeks, like a piece of fruit left out in the burning Sicilian sun for too long. Tancredi was right — although everything changed, it all remains the same in the end.

—Staff writer Laura B. Martens can be reached at laura.martens@thecrimson.com.