Given Hungary’s push to rely more on domestic film production, consumption, and supply chains, it is no surprise that many have taken a closer look at the dominance of foreign players in its economy.
Hungary has long invited international companies to boost employment and GDP, but, as pointed out by Telex, these entities have faced backlash due to the low added value jobs, e.g., assembly line work, they bring. They also source raw materials from imports and then export the final product.
The portal, however, highlights Hungary’s film industry as an exception, although it takes a bit of digging. Foreign actors and Hollywood films dominate, it admits. “Blade Runner,” “Dune,” “Alien: Romulus,” and “Poor Things” are just four recent examples the portal lists of movies shot in Hungary. Almost 90 percent of Hungary’s more than HUF 1 trillion of direct film production costs were attributed to foreign works between 2019 and 2023. Meanwhile, Hungarian film and TV production barely reached 10 percent.
Aside from overall lower production costs, including highly skilled labor working at a fraction of the salaries commanded back in the U.S., the government’s tax refunds for film production have amounted to HUF 200 billion over five years.
U.S. President Trump has promised a 100 percent tariff on films made outside the United States, so who knows what the future of American film production in Budapest will be. What is clear is that compared to other sectors, movies do rely heavily on the expertise of the domestic film industry, employing thousands of Hungarian film professionals who can work with the most modern tools and procedures, Telex notes.
In other words, Hungarians are able to advance their careers and knowledge based on their work on foreign productions. Some even receive international praise, e.g., Zsuzsanna Sipos’s Oscar for Best Production Design in 2022 for “Dune” and Zsuzsa Mihalek’s Oscar for the same category in 2024 for “Poor Things.” “Son of Saul,” directed by László Nemes, won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2016. Director Kristóf Deák won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for “Sing” in 2016 as well. A quick reference to Wikipedia’s page on Hungarian Academy Award winners and nominees shows just how prevalent Hungarians have been, although many are those who worked on U.S. productions and often were born in the U.S.
But do those domestic professionals who have worked on American films ever work on Hungarian productions? Telex published a study on this, showing that the transition between Hungarian and foreign films is low, with half of the crew members only signing contracts for Hungarian or foreign films.
However, the portal maintains that Hungarian film production does benefit from the international experience gained in foreign productions, with stats showing that the more professionals with international experience, the better a film’s reputation. This is especially the case in areas such as visual design, special effects, or costumes.
Overall, Hungary’s film sector has been able to better translate foreign productions into local growth due to the domestic presence of skilled labor and competitive talent on the ground.
