Sanremo Night 3 delivers: Filippucci wins Giovani and the Top 5 flips the script
Sanremo’s third night is where the festival stops pretending it’s merely “a celebration of music” and quietly becomes what it always was: a national obsession with a scoreboard, a microscope, and enough adrenaline to power the Ligurian coast.
Because Night 1 introduces the cast, Night 2 starts shaping the narrative, and Night 3 is where Italy looks you dead in the eye and says, “Right, now prove it again, but this time with the radios listening and the public ready to pounce.”
On this third evening of Sanremo 2026, 15 of the 30 Big acts performed, and the verdict came from a combined Radio Jury + televote. Carlo Conti and Laura Pausini held the centre, while Irina Shayk and Ubaldo Pantani dropped in as co-hosts, adding that very Sanremo flavour of glamour on one side and comic chaos on the other, with the Ariston calmly acting like this is all perfectly normal.
The night had everything: a Giovani winner and global star power
The emotional core of the night came from Nuove Proposte, because this is the part of Sanremo where dreams are either born or quietly dismantled in real time. The final ended with Nicolò Filippucci taking the win, beating Angelica Bove.
And for the “only at Sanremo” moment, Eros Ramazzotti and Alicia Keys performed together, which is the sort of booking that makes you forget you were about to argue about rankings for a second. Almost.
Running order
01 – MARIA ANTONIETTA & COLOMBRE – “La felicità e basta”
02 – LEO GASSMANN – “Naturale”
03 – MALIKA AYANE – “Animali notturni”
04 – SAL DA VINCI – “Per sempre sì”
05 – TREDICI PIETRO – “Uomo che cade”
06 – RAF – “Ora e per sempre”
07 – FRANCESCO RENGA – “Il meglio di me”
08 – EDDIE BROCK – “Avvoltoi”
09 – SERENA BRANCALE – “Qui con me”
10 – SAMURAI JAY – “Ossessione”
11 – ARISA – “Magica favola”
12 – MICHELE BRAVI – “Prima o poi”
13 – LUCHÈ – “Labirinto”
14 – MARA SATTEI – “Le cose che non sai di me”
15 – SAYF – “Tu mi piaci tanto”
Results
Nuove Proposte winner:
Nicolò Filippucci (winner vs Angelica Bove)
Big – Top 5 (Radio Jury + Televote, in random order):
ARISA – “Magica favola”
SAYF – “Tu mi piaci tanto”
LUCHÈ – “Labirinto”
SERENA BRANCALE – “Qui con me”
SAL DA VINCI – “Per sempre sì”
Why this Top 5 matters
Sanremo’s “Top 5 in random order” is the festival’s favourite kind of tease: it doesn’t tell you who’s leading, but it tells you who has gravity right now, the kind that makes radio programmers lean in and casual viewers remember your chorus on the way to the kettle.
And the interesting part is how this list reshapes the week. It’s not a repeat of yesterday’s mood. It’s not a gentle continuation. It’s the festival reminding everyone that momentum here is earned night by night, and that the Ariston has no loyalty beyond the last performance.
Tomorrow, Sanremo moves into covers night, with all 30 artists returning to perform covers from Italian and international music history alongside special guests, which is where legacies get tested and some contenders accidentally become favourites.
