10 Best Movies Set in or About Austria

10 Movies Set in or About Austria

Foreign-led films whose sustained setting or subject remains centered on Austria.

1. 

   1. Amadeus

   1984

   As an old man, the court composer Antonio Salieri confesses his consuming envy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — a vulgar, effortless genius whose gift he both worships and cannot forgive. A lavish, Oscar-sweeping drama of mediocrity and brilliance.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A Vienna-centered Mozart and Salieri drama rooted in Austrian imperial music culture.

2. 

   2. The Sound of Music

   1965

   In 1930s Austria, a free-spirited young postulant leaves her convent to become governess to a widowed naval captain's seven children, bringing music and warmth back into their regimented home as the shadow of Nazism falls over the country. The beloved musical.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A Salzburg and Austrian Alps musical centered on Austrian family life during the Anschluss era.

3. 

   3. The Third Man

   1949

   Arriving in war-ravaged, occupied Vienna to take a job from his old friend Harry Lime, a pulp novelist learns that Lime is dead — and that the circumstances don't add up. His search for the truth winds through a city of shadows and black-market intrigue. A film-noir landmark.

4. 

   4. The Red Violin

   Le violon rouge · 1998

   Following a single mysterious crimson violin across three centuries and several countries, this drama traces the lives it touches — and the beauty and tragedy it leaves behind — from its creation in 17th-century Italy to a modern-day auction house.

5. 

   5. The Illusionist

   2006

   In imperial Vienna, a masterful stage magician reconnects with an aristocratic woman he loved in his youth, now promised to a ruthless crown prince. As his illusions grow bolder, they draw the suspicion of the authorities. A romantic mystery.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A romantic mystery set in fin-de-siecle Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian imperial world.

6. 

   6. Woman in Gold

   2015

   Decades after fleeing the Nazis, an elderly Jewish refugee in America joins forces with a young lawyer to reclaim a famous Klimt portrait of her aunt, looted from her Vienna family and now treasured as a national icon of Austria. Based on a true legal battle.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A restitution drama centered on Austrian art, Nazi looting, and Vienna's Klimt legacy.

7. 

   7. Young Törless

   Der junge Törless · 1966

   At an Austrian boarding school around 1900, a perceptive, detached boy watches classmates torment a weaker student and does nothing to stop it, testing the limits of his own conscience. Volker Schlöndorff's chilling study of cruelty and complicity.

8. 

   8. 3096 Days

   3096 Tage · 2013

   Based on the real ordeal of Natascha Kampusch, this drama recounts the years an Austrian girl spent held captive by her abductor after being snatched on her way to school as a child. A harrowing account of endurance and survival.

9. 

   9. Mayerling

   1968

   Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, at odds with his rigid father the emperor and stifled by a court with no place for his ideals, finds fragile solace in a doomed love affair with a young baroness. A lavish historical romance drawn from a real royal tragedy.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A drama centered on Crown Prince Rudolf and the Austrian imperial tragedy at Mayerling.

10. 

    10. Baron Blood

    Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga · 1972

    A young man visiting Austria to explore his family history reads aloud an ancient curse at the castle of a sadistic ancestor — and unwittingly summons the long-dead baron back to murderous life. A gothic horror from Mario Bava.