10 Best Movies Set in or About Hungary

10 Movies Set in or About Hungary

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

1. 

   1. The 25th Hour

   La Vingt-cinquième Heure · 1967

   Based on true events, a Romanian peasant wrongly seized during World War II is swept helplessly across a collapsing Europe — from Nazi labor camps to Allied custody — for years, desperate only to return to his family. A sweeping tragicomic epic.

2. 

   2. I Often Think of Piroschka

   Ich denke oft an Piroschka · 1955

   A young German exchange student spends a golden summer in a Hungarian village, where he falls sweetly in love with the stationmaster's spirited daughter. A gentle, nostalgic romance.

3. 

   3. Kvadrat

   2013

   This documentary follows the internationally acclaimed Russian techno DJ Andrey Pushkarev on the road, capturing the unglamorous grind behind the booth and the meaning he finds in the music. Part road movie, part portrait of an artist.

4. 

   4. Hungarian Rhapsody

   Ungarische Rhapsodie · 1928

   On the Hungarian plains, an impoverished young hussar from a fallen aristocratic family is torn between the coquettish daughter of a landowner and a devoted peasant girl. A silent romantic drama.

5. 

   5. Caravan

   1934

   In Hungary's Tokay wine country at harvest time, a countess impulsively marries a Gypsy fiddler rather than the baron's son intended for her, setting off a bittersweet tangle of love and class. A lyrical romantic operetta-film.

6. 

   6. Guilty of Treason

   1950

   This drama recounts the ordeal of Hungarian Cardinal József Mindszenty, who defied both the Nazi occupation and the Communist regime that followed, and was arrested and subjected to a notorious show trial. A Cold War courtroom drama.

7. 

   7. Hanna's War

   1988

   Based on a true story, a young Hungarian-Jewish woman who escaped to Palestine is recruited and trained by the British, then parachutes back into Nazi-occupied Europe on a daring resistance mission. A wartime drama of a real-life heroine.

8. 

   8. Etoile

   Étoile · 1988

   An American ballet student who enrolls at a school in Hungary is drawn into an eerie mystery when it becomes clear that the academy, and a haunted ballerina, are hiding something sinister. A supernatural thriller.

9. 

   9. The Countess

   2009

   In 17th-century Hungary, the powerful Countess Erzsébet Báthory, spurned in love and terrified of aging, descends into the mad belief that the blood of young women can preserve her beauty. Julie Delpy's chilling historical drama of the legendary Blood Countess.

10. 

    10. In Praise of Older Women

    1978

    Coming of age in war-torn and postwar Hungary, a young man pursues a series of romantic entanglements, learning about love above all from the older, married women who tutor him. A frank, nostalgic drama.