Raoul Bova was born in a Roman white collar family, his father was an employee and his mother a housewife. He has two sisters who he is close to. His passion in his youth was swimming and he became a champion at 16. He is also a trained athlete. He performed his military duty in the "Bersaglieri" and he studied at the ISEF but didn't finish in order to begin an acting career. His first role was in "Una storia italiana", a TV movie, and his debut in cinema was in "Piccolo grande amore" by Carlo Vanzina.

He began his acting career on Italian television, joining the cast of the award-winning crime drama La Piovra (shown in France as La Mafia) during its seventh season, which led to starring roles in several subsequent La Piovra TV movies and miniseries. Bova made his European film breakthrough in 1993 with the romantic fantasy Piccolo Grande Amore as a hunky watersports instructor, and he's played romantic leads ever since. He played a handsome plumber in the comedy Comincio Tutto Per Caso and a heroic husband in the thriller Coppia Omicida.

In 2001, he appeared with Italian film legends Sophia Loren and Giancarlo Gianinni in Lina Wertm?ller's historical drama Francesca e Nunziata. The next year he was in his first American film, Avenging Angelo, starring Anthony Quinn in his final role. After returning to Italy to play opposite Giovanna Mezzogiorno in the romantic drama La Finestra di Fronte, he did another Hollywood project as Diane Lane's love interest in Audrey Wells' romantic comedy Under the Tuscan Sun. In private life Bova is a happy husband and father, very close to his wife and their children Alessandro Leon and Francesco.