Puskin Cinema Turns 100: A Season of Classic Films in the Heart of Budapest
One of Budapest’s most beautiful cinemas is celebrating a milestone birthday, and it’s throwing quite the party. From September 25 through November 28, 2026, the Puskin Cinema on Kossuth Lajos Street is marking its 100th anniversary with the Puskin 100 Film Festival, a season-long tribute built around rare classics, live-scored screenings, and a genuinely rich piece of Budapest cultural history. If you’re visiting the city this autumn and love film, architecture, or just a good story, this is one of the most rewarding cultural events happening downtown.
Event Essentials
- Dates: September 25 to November 28, 2026, with roughly one special screening per week
- Venue: Puskin Cinema, Kossuth Lajos utca 18, District V, Budapest, mainly in the Metropolis and Amarcord screening rooms
- Opening film: Metropolis (1927) on September 25, with a new live electronic score by Balázs Zságer
- Closing film: The Gold Rush (1925) on November 28, with live musical accompaniment by the Bolcsó/G. Szabó/Márkos/Márkos Quartet
- Highlight screening: The Thief of Bagdad returns on November 23, exactly a century after it premiered at the cinema’s pre-opening gala
- Rare format: a 35mm screening of Spielberg’s Duel on October 30
- Family strand: Puskin Kuckó morning screenings of Hungarian classics for children, held on select Saturdays at 10 a.m.
- Tickets: available at the cinema’s box office and through its official website; most screenings start at 7 p.m.
A Cinema With a Century of Stories
The building itself is older than the cinema. Designed by architect Győző Czigler, it has stood on the corner of Kossuth Lajos utca and Semmelweis utca since 1895, originally built as a university residence hall, and later home to the elegant Magyar Világ Café, a favorite meeting spot for Budapest’s artists and high society. The cinema arrived later: on November 26, 1926, the building reopened as the Forum Cinema, drawing a glamorous opening-night crowd of nearly 900 guests, including Archduke Joseph Francis and his wife. The venue was renamed Puskin in 1949 and has kept its gilded, opera-house-like interior ever since, which is exactly why it’s still ranked among the most beautiful cinemas in the world. Film buffs will also enjoy knowing that Puskin was the first cinema in Hungary to screen a sound film, in 1929, a debut that nearly collapsed amid an international patent dispute before making it to the screen just in time.
What to Expect at the Festival
For ten weeks, Puskin is turning its historic screening rooms into a time machine, with a different decade of film history celebrated almost every week. The lineup moves through a genuinely international selection. Hungarian cinema is represented by the beloved comedy Hyppolit, the Butler on October 2 and Zoltán Fábri’s Twenty Hours on October 23. Italian cinema gets its due with Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist landmark Bicycle Thieves on October 9 and Sergio Leone’s sweeping gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America on November 6, scored by Ennio Morricone. Wong Kar-wai’s cult romance In the Mood for Love screens on October 16, while Jacques Deray’s moody French-Italian thriller La Piscine, starring Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, follows on October 23.
Movie history fans will also want to catch the Creative Newsreels evening on November 4, featuring newsreel work by Georg Pintér and Frigyes Gödrös, followed by a discussion with the filmmakers about how they pushed back against formulaic propaganda in the 1970s. Two dates carry particular emotional weight: the return of The Thief of Bagdad on November 23, a full century after it first lit up the same screen, and the festival’s closing night on November 28, when Chaplin’s silent comedy meets a live jazz quartet, bridging a hundred years of film history in one evening.
Best deals of Budapest
Since the festival spans films from Hungary, Italy, France, Hong Kong, and the United States, screening languages and subtitle options vary from title to title. International visitors are encouraged to check the cinema’s website for each film’s specific language version and subtitle availability before booking.
Something for Younger Visitors Too
Families traveling with children are well looked after. The Puskin Kuckó strand offers morning screenings of much-loved Hungarian animated and family classics, including The Mishaps of Csöpi, The Captain of the Forest, Cat City, and Vuk, giving younger visitors their own taste of the anniversary celebrations. As these films are Hungarian classics, they may be presented in Hungarian only, so non-Hungarian-speaking families should check the website in advance to confirm subtitle options.
Practical Information for Visitors
The Puskin Cinema sits just a short walk from Astoria and Budapest’s historic downtown core, making it an easy addition to a day of sightseeing. Given the anniversary buzz and the one-off nature of several screenings, especially the November 23 and November 28 events, booking ahead is a smart move. Since language formats differ across this varied program, visitors are strongly encouraged to consult the cinema’s official website for details on each film before purchasing tickets.
Whether you’re a classic film enthusiast or simply curious about one of Budapest’s most architecturally stunning interiors, the Puskin 100 Film Festival offers a rare chance to experience a century of cinema history in the very room where much of it unfolded.
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