The Resilience of Hungarian Cinema and Its Global Stars

By the ULTIMATE Budapest Editorial Team

The pioneers (1901–1945)

Hungarian film was born in Budapest. In 1901 Béla Zsitkovszky, projectionist at the Uránia, filmed A táncz (The Dance), and the day of its first showing, 30 April, is now National Film Day. The Uránia, in its gilded Moorish hall, is still the country’s national film theatre.

Before 1920 Budapest had a busy silent film industry, where Mihály Kertész and Sándor Korda learned their craft. Both left, and the world came to know them as Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda.

Uránia National Film Theatre →

The golden age (1945–1990)

After the war the film industry passed into state hands, and from the 1960s a remarkable generation made Hungarian cinema one of the most admired in Europe: Miklós Jancsó with his long, choreographed takes, Zoltán Fábri, Károly Makk, István Szabó and Márta Mészáros.

The prizes followed. Makk’s Love won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1971; Mészáros’s Adoption won the Golden Bear in 1975, the first ever won by a woman; Mari Törőcsik shared the best actress award at Cannes in 1976; Ferenc Rófusz’s animated short The Fly won Hungary’s first Oscar in 1981; and Szabó’s Mephisto won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 1982.

The modern and international era (1990–present)

Since 1990 Hungarian cinema has kept its place at the top of world film. Béla Tarr’s black-and-white epics, from Sátántangó (1994) to The Turin Horse (2011), have a devoted following, and Ildikó Enyedi won the Caméra d’Or with her first feature, My 20th Century (1989), and the Golden Bear with On Body and Soul (2017).

László Nemes’s first feature, Son of Saul, won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2015 and the Oscar in 2016, and Kristóf Deák’s short Sing (Mindenki) won another the following year. Budapest has also become one of Europe’s busiest film studios, where Hollywood productions are made every year.

Must-watch films: the classics

To understand the country’s cinematic lens, start with the classics of the golden age, then the modern masters.

• The Round-Up (Szegénylegények, 1966): Miklós Jancsó’s austere, hypnotic drama of prisoners on the Great Plain in the 1860s, a landmark of European art cinema.
• Love (Szerelem, 1971): Károly Makk’s tender story of a young wife and her bedridden mother-in-law, with Mari Törőcsik and Lili Darvas, won the Jury Prize at Cannes.
• Adoption (Örökbefogadás, 1975): Márta Mészáros’s quiet portrait of a woman who longs for a child won the Golden Bear in Berlin, the first for a woman director.
• Mephisto (1981): István Szabó’s study of an actor who sells his soul to keep his career, with Klaus Maria Brandauer, won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Must-watch films: the modern masters

• Sátántangó (1994): Béla Tarr’s seven-hour masterpiece of a crumbling collective farm, a pilgrimage for cinephiles.
• White God (Fehér isten, 2014): Kornél Mundruczó’s fable of a girl, her dog and a rebellion of Budapest’s strays won the Prix Un Certain Regard at Cannes.
• Son of Saul (Saul fia, 2015): László Nemes’s overwhelming first feature, set over two days in Auschwitz-Birkenau, won the Grand Prix at Cannes and the Oscar.
• On Body and Soul (Testről és lélekről, 2017): Ildikó Enyedi’s strange, tender love story of two colleagues who share the same dream won the Golden Bear and an Oscar nomination.

The iconic film stars

Hungarian cinema has given the screen actors of great depth and range.

• Mari Törőcsik (1935–2021): the great lady of Hungarian film, who shared the best actress award at Cannes in 1976 for Mrs Déry Where Are You?
• Lili Darvas (1902–1974): a star of the Budapest stage who returned from America for her last great role, the mother in Makk’s Love.
• Iván Darvas (1925–2007): elegant and ironic, the son returning from prison in Love and a favourite of the stage for decades.
• Géza Röhrig: the poet who carried Son of Saul, on screen in almost every shot.
• Alexandra Borbély: the reserved quality inspector of On Body and Soul, for which she won the European Film Award for best actress in 2017.

Where to watch in Budapest

Budapest is a wonderful city for film lovers. The Uránia National Film Theatre shows new Hungarian films and restored classics in one of the most beautiful cinemas in Europe, and the city’s art-house screens, the Puskin, the Művész and the Corvin, show Hungarian films alongside world cinema.

Our advice: look for the restored golden-age classics at the Uránia, many of them shown with English subtitles, and book ahead for premieres.

Uránia National Film Theatre →   Puskin Art Cinema →   Művész Art Cinema →   Corvin Cinema →

Hidden on the silver screen: international productions filmed in Hungary

Budapest has become one of Hollywood’s favourite cities to film in. Its boulevards and grand nineteenth-century buildings can play Paris, Rome, Moscow or Buenos Aires, and its two great studio complexes, Origo in the city and Korda at Etyek, about 30 kilometres away, have some of the largest sound stages in Europe.

Our advice: walk Andrássy Avenue from the Opera to Heroes’ Square and you will pass more film locations than you can count.

• Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Origo and Korda studios: Denis Villeneuve made about two-thirds of the film at Origo, with more stages at Korda.
• Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024), Origo Studios: the palace interiors of Arrakeen were built on Origo’s largest stages, and the production came back for the second film.
• Poor Things (2023), Origo Studios: Yorgos Lanthimos’s Oscar-winning fantasy built its strange, beautiful world on Budapest sound stages.
• Spy (2015), Budapest: Melissa McCarthy’s comedy was largely shot in the city, with its CIA interiors built at Origo.
• The Martian (2015), Korda Studios: Ridley Scott filmed Matt Damon’s red planet on the stages at Etyek.
• Evita (1996), Budapest: the city’s grand avenues and buildings stood in for Buenos Aires in Alan Parker’s film with Madonna.
• Munich (2005), Andrássy Avenue: Steven Spielberg used Budapest’s great boulevard to play the Paris and Rome of the 1970s.
• Red Sparrow (2018), Budapest: Jennifer Lawrence’s spy thriller used the city for Moscow and other European capitals.

Andrássy Avenue →   The Hungarian State Opera House →   Heroes’ Square →   Széchenyi Chain Bridge →

The Hungarians who built Hollywood

Few countries have shaped Hollywood as Hungary did. A well-known sign in a Hollywood studio is said to have read “It’s not enough to be Hungarian to make films: you also have to have talent”, and the names below explain why the joke was told.

• Adolph Zukor (1873–1976): born in Ricse, he founded Paramount Pictures.
• William Fox (1879–1952): born Vilmos Fried in Tolcsva, he founded the Fox Film Corporation, later 20th Century Fox.
• Michael Curtiz (1886–1962): the Budapest director Mihály Kertész, who won the Oscar for best director for Casablanca.
• Alexander Korda (1893–1956): Sándor Korda, who built London Films and made The Private Life of Henry VIII, the first British film to win an Oscar for its star.
• Bela Lugosi (1882–1956): the Hungarian stage actor who became Hollywood’s Dracula in 1931.
• Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988): born in Miskolc, the writing half of Powell and Pressburger, who won an Oscar for the story of 49th Parallel.
• Vilmos Zsigmond (1930–2016): the cinematographer who left Budapest in 1956 and won the Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

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