The Resilience of Romanian Cinema and Its Global Stars

By the ULTIMATE Bucharest Editorial Team

The studios and the classics (to 1989)

Romania’s film industry grew around the studios at Buftea, outside Bucharest, built in the 1950s. The first great international success came in 1965, when Liviu Ciulei won best director at Cannes for Forest of the Hanged, a First World War drama from Liviu Rebreanu’s novel.

For decades afterwards the country made popular historical epics and comedies, and gifted directors such as Lucian Pintilie and Mircea Daneliuc, whose sharper films often had to wait years to reach audiences.

The Romanian New Wave (2005–present)

In 2005 Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr Lăzărescu, a long night in an ambulance going from hospital to hospital, won the Prix Un Certain Regard at Cannes, and a new cinema was born: long takes, natural light, real streets and flats, dark humour and moral weight.

The prizes came quickly. Corneliu Porumboiu’s 12:08 East of Bucharest won the Caméra d’Or in 2006, Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won the Palme d’Or in 2007, and Romanian films have since won the Golden Bear three times, with Child’s Pose (2013), Touch Me Not (2018) and Radu Jude’s 2021 winner.

The Romanian New Wave: our Bucharest story →

Must-watch films: the classics

To understand Romanian cinema, start with the classics, then the New Wave.

• Forest of the Hanged (Pădurea spânzuraţilor, 1965): Liviu Ciulei’s First World War drama, best director at Cannes.
• The Reenactment (Reconstituirea, 1968): Lucian Pintilie’s bitter tale of two young men forced to re-enact a bar fight for a training film.
• The Death of Mr Lăzărescu (Moartea domnului Lăzărescu, 2005): Cristi Puiu’s darkly funny, humane night in Bucharest’s hospitals.
• 12:08 East of Bucharest (A fost sau n-a fost?, 2006): Corneliu Porumboiu’s comedy of a local TV debate about what really happened in 1989.

Must-watch films: the New Wave masters

• 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007): Cristian Mungiu’s gripping drama of two students over one day in the late 1980s, winner of the Palme d’Or.
• Police, Adjective (Poliţist, adjectiv, 2009): Porumboiu’s dry, brilliant study of a young detective and the meaning of words.
• Child’s Pose (Poziţia copilului, 2013): Călin Peter Netzer’s portrait of a formidable mother, with Luminiţa Gheorghiu, winner of the Golden Bear.
• Graduation (Bacalaureat, 2016): Mungiu’s drama of a father and his daughter’s exams, which won him best director at Cannes.

The stars

The New Wave made stars of actors long admired on the Bucharest stage.

• Luminiţa Gheorghiu (1949–2021): the great character actress of the New Wave, from Mr Lăzărescu to Child’s Pose.
• Anamaria Marinca: the extraordinary lead of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
• Maia Morgenstern: star of Romanian stage and screen, and Mary in The Passion of the Christ.
• Sebastian Stan: born in Constanța, Marvel’s Winter Soldier, who won the Silver Bear for best leading performance in Berlin in 2024 for A Different Man.

Where to watch in Bucharest

Bucharest’s art-house cinemas are the best way into Romanian film: the Cinemateca Eforie, the Romanian Film Archive’s cinema, Cinema Elvire Popesco at the French Institute and the cinema of the Museum of the Romanian Peasant all show Romanian films, often with English subtitles. Every summer the Transilvania International Film Festival in Cluj, founded in 2002, is the great gathering of Romanian cinema.

Our advice: watch one New Wave film before your trip, then look for a screening with English subtitles at the Eforie or the Elvire Popesco.

Cinemateca Eforie →   Cinema Elvire Popesco →   Cinema Muzeul Țăranului →   Bucharest International Film Festival →

Hidden on the silver screen: international productions filmed in Romania

Romania’s studios and its castles, forests and mountains have made it one of Europe’s favourite places to film.

• Cold Mountain (2003): Anthony Minghella’s American Civil War epic, with Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, was built at Castel Film Studios near Bucharest, with its battle scenes filmed in the Carpathians.
• Wednesday (2022): Netflix built the town of Jericho and the interiors of Nevermore Academy on the backlot at Buftea, and Cantacuzino Castle in the Carpathians played the school.

The Romanians of Hollywood

Romanian-born actors and film-makers have long made their mark in Hollywood.

• Edward G. Robinson (1893–1973): born in Bucharest, the great tough guy of Little Caesar, Double Indemnity and Key Largo.
• Johnny Weissmuller (1904–1984): born in Freidorf, now part of Timișoara, the Olympic swimming champion who became Hollywood’s Tarzan.
• Jean Negulesco (1900–1993): born in Craiova, the director of Johnny Belinda and How to Marry a Millionaire.
• Sebastian Stan: the Constanța-born star of the Marvel films and A Different Man.

Questions and answers