Alexander Skarsgård Is Coming to Budapest — and You Won’t Want to Miss It
If you’re visiting Budapest this March, you’re in for a serious cinematic treat. From 19 to 22 March 2026, the beloved Puskin Cinema in the heart of the city hosts the British Film Days — a four-day festival curated by the British Council and the Budapest International Film Festival (BIFF) — and this year’s programme is genuinely unmissable. Eight carefully selected films, one of which stars the magnetic Alexander Skarsgård in arguably one of the boldest films of the year, make this a cultural highlight you’ll want to build your itinerary around.
The Film Everyone Is Talking About: Pillion
The crown jewel of this year’s festival is undoubtedly Pillion, Harry Lighton’s audacious debut feature, distributed by A24 and released to widespread critical acclaim. The film stars Alexander Skarsgård — best known for his roles in True Blood, Big Little Lies, and The Northman — as Ray, an enigmatic, impossibly charismatic biker who sweeps a shy, soft-spoken traffic warden named Colin (Harry Melling, familiar to Potter fans as Dudley Dursley) completely off his feet.
What starts as an unlikely encounter in a bar quickly spirals into a deeply unconventional love story. Ray is a dominant, Colin becomes his willing submissive, and through their intense, humor-laced relationship, the film offers a rare and surprisingly tender window into the gay BDSM community. Far from exploitative, Lighton handles the material with real craft — critics have praised the film for being “wildly explicit and strangely sweet,” while AP News called it “disarmingly affecting” and compared its cultural impact to A24’s Babygirl. Skarsgård, drawing on the classic biker iconography of Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising to shape his character, is reportedly magnetic in every scene.
The film won the Best Screenplay prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in the prestigious Un Certain Regard section, which alone should tell you this is serious cinema. Catch it on Friday, 20 March at 18:00 at the Puskin.
A Cinematic Journey Through Contemporary Britain
Pillion is just one chapter in what promises to be a rich and diverse four days of film. The festival opens on Thursday, 19 March at 19:00 with the opening gala screening of Rose of Nevada, directed by BAFTA-winner Mark Jenkin. Starring two rising stars of British cinema, Callum Turner and George Mackay, the film is a time-loop mystery that blurs the line between the everyday and the supernatural — a thirty-year-old missing ship returns to a fishing village, disturbing both the past and the future of everyone it touches.
Best deals of Budapest
Friday evening also brings a very special treat: Tony Richardson’s 1961 masterpiece A Taste of Honey, projected from a rare 35mm print at 20:30. Raw, lyrical, and achingly human, the film follows a young woman finding dignity amid difficult family circumstances and social expectations. Seeing this classic on film, in the ornate splendour of the Puskin, is an experience in itself.
Saturday and Sunday: Bold Voices, Big Stories
Saturday opens with 100 Nights of Hero at 14:00, a sensual and stylized fable about the power of female storytelling — with pop icon Charli XCX appearing in a notable supporting role. The afternoon continues with A Want in Her at 16:30, described as one of the most acclaimed British documentaries in recent years: a dense, cathartic portrait of a mother-daughter relationship, exploring addiction, mental illness, and the complicated nature of love. Saturday closes at 19:30 with On Falling, the debut feature from Laura Carreira, fresh off a European Film Academy award — a quietly devastating portrait of life on the margins of contemporary European work culture.
Sunday rounds out the festival beautifully. Rose of Nevada gets a second screening at 14:00 for those who missed the opening gala. At 16:30, Everybody to Kenmure Street — a stirring documentary by Chilean-Belgian director Felipe Bustos Sierra — tells the story of how the residents of a single street stood up to authority and became a symbol of civil resistance. The festival then closes at 19:30 with My Father’s Shadow, Akinola Davies Jr.’s magical debut feature: a lyrical father-son story set against the political tensions of 1990s Nigeria, where a child’s desires collide with history in the making.
The Puskin Cinema: A Venue Worth Visiting in Its Own Right
The British Film Days take place at the Puskin Cinema, located on Kossuth Lajos Street in central Budapest. One of the city’s most beautiful and storied cinemas, the Puskin is a destination as much as a venue — its ornate interior, with its high ceilings and classic architecture, sets the perfect mood for a night of quality cinema.
Practical Information
Tickets are priced at 3,900 HUF (approximately €10) per screening, making this one of the most affordable cultural events you’ll find in Budapest this spring. You can book your seats directly through the Puskin Cinema website. Given the buzz around Pillion and Alexander Skarsgård’s star power, tickets for Friday evening’s screening are likely to go fast — so don’t leave it to the last minute.
Whether you’re a devoted cinephile or simply looking for a memorable evening out in Budapest, the British Film Days offer four days of world-class storytelling in one of the city’s most gorgeous settings. Mark your calendar — this is exactly the kind of event that turns a good trip into an unforgettable one.
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