The Resilience of Polish Cinema and Its Global Stars

By the ULTIMATE Warsaw Editorial Team

Łódź and the Polish School (1945–1960s)

After the war Poland’s film-makers were trained at the new Łódź Film School, founded in 1948, whose alumni read like a roll of honour: Andrzej Wajda, Andrzej Munk, Roman Polański, Krzysztof Kieślowski and Jerzy Skolimowski.

In the 1950s the Polish School looked back at the war with rare honesty and poetry. Wajda’s Kanał won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1957, and his Ashes and Diamonds (1958) made Zbigniew Cybulski a star. In 1962 Polański’s first feature, Knife in the Water, was nominated for the Oscar.

The cinema of moral concern and the 1980s

In the 1970s and 1980s Polish directors turned to everyday life and conscience. Wajda’s Man of Iron (1981) became the first Polish film to win the Palme d’Or, Zbigniew Rybczyński’s animated short Tango won the Oscar in 1983, and Krystyna Janda won best actress at Cannes in 1990 for Interrogation.

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog (1988), ten short films set in a single Warsaw housing estate, became one of the landmarks of world cinema, and his Three Colours trilogy won the Golden Lion in Venice and the Silver Bear in Berlin.

The modern era (1990–present)

Polish cinema has gone from strength to strength. Polański’s The Pianist won the Palme d’Or in 2002; Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida became the first Polish film to win the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2015, and his Cold War won him best director at Cannes; and the veteran Jerzy Skolimowski won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2022 with EO, the story of a donkey’s journey across Europe.

Must-watch films: the classics

To understand Polish cinema, start with the classics, then the modern masters.

• Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i diament, 1958): Andrzej Wajda’s portrait of the last day of the war, with Zbigniew Cybulski in dark glasses.
• Knife in the Water (Nóż w wodzie, 1962): Roman Polański’s tense first feature of a couple and a hitch-hiker on a yacht, nominated for the Oscar.
• Man of Iron (Człowiek z żelaza, 1981): Wajda’s portrait of a shipyard worker and a journalist, winner of the Palme d’Or.
• Dekalog (1988): Krzysztof Kieślowski’s ten moral tales from a Warsaw housing estate.

Must-watch films: the modern masters

• Three Colours: Blue, White, Red (1993–1994): Kieślowski’s trilogy, from the Golden Lion of Blue to the three Oscar nominations of Red.
• The Pianist (2002): Polański’s film of the pianist Władysław Szpilman’s survival in wartime Warsaw, winner of the Palme d’Or and three Oscars.
• Ida (2013): Paweł Pawlikowski’s austere black-and-white story of a young novice in 1960s Poland, winner of the Oscar.
• Cold War (Zimna wojna, 2018): Pawlikowski’s love story across the borders of post-war Europe, with Joanna Kulig, which won him best director at Cannes.

The stars

Polish cinema has given the screen faces of great intensity.

• Zbigniew Cybulski (1927–1967): the brooding star of Ashes and Diamonds, often called Poland’s James Dean.
• Krystyna Janda: the star of Wajda’s Man of Marble and Man of Iron, and best actress at Cannes for Interrogation.
• Daniel Olbrychski: the dashing hero of Wajda’s historical epics.
• Joanna Kulig: the singer and actress at the heart of Cold War.

Where to watch in Warsaw and festivals

In Warsaw, Iluzjon, the cinema of the National Film Archive, shows Polish classics and world cinema, and Kino Kultura on the Royal Route is one of the city’s favourite art-house screens. Every September the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, held since 1974, awards its Golden Lions to the year’s best Polish films, and Camerimage, founded in 1993, is one of the world’s leading festivals of cinematography.

Our advice: see a Polish classic at Iluzjon, then walk the streets of the Warsaw on film page to find where they were shot.

Iluzjon →   Kino Kultura →   Warsaw on film →

Hidden on the silver screen: international productions filmed in Poland

Poland’s cities have been the setting for some of the most important films about the twentieth century. Steven Spielberg shot Schindler’s List (1993) in Kraków, in the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz and the district of Podgórze, and Warsaw itself appears in The Pianist, A Real Pain and The Zookeeper’s Wife, whose locations our Warsaw on film page explores.

Warsaw on film →

The Poles who helped to build Hollywood

Polish-born pioneers stand at the very start of Hollywood.

• Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974): born in Warsaw, the producer behind Goldwyn Pictures, a founding part of MGM, and of The Best Years of Our Lives.
• The Warner brothers: Harry, Albert and Sam Warner came from a family from Krasnosielc, north of Warsaw, before founding Warner Bros. with their brother Jack.
• Pola Negri (1897–1987): born in Lipno, one of the great stars of the silent screen in Berlin and Hollywood.
• Janusz Kamiński: the cinematographer of Steven Spielberg’s films, with Oscars for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan.
• Jan A. P. Kaczmarek: the composer who won the Oscar for the score of Finding Neverland.

Questions and answers