Start your trip to Vienna from the comfort of your couch – by watching these 6 Vienna-filmed movies. Then, travel to Vienna yourself, walk to their Vienna film locations – and you'll automatically have all of the city's key sights ticked off your bucket list…
1. Start your Viennese adventure at the Vienna State Opera
– as seen in Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015)
About the Film:
One of the most recent films to have been shot in Vienna is Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) staring main hero Tom Cruise as IMF agent Ethan Hunt.
The filming locations also included Marrakech, Morocco; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and London, UK.
In Vienna, the film was shot at the Shottenring underground station and Vienna's impressive State Opera.
About the Location:
As the Opera is located on Vienna's most central square, this location is an ideal starting point for your Vienna sightseeing marathon.
Within walking distance from here is the famous Hotel Sacher, Vienna's main shopping street, and the starting point for several guided walking tours (Free with the Vienna Pass).
From here, you can also catch one of the VIENNA SIGHTSEEING Hop On / Hop Off Busses (also free with the Vienna Pass).
2. Enjoy world-class art and a pretty Baroque garden at the Belvedere
– as seen in Woman in Gold (2015)
About the Film:
Woman in Gold (2015) is based on the true story of Maria Altmann – a Jewish woman who had to flee to the USA after the Nazis occupied Austria and her hometown Vienna in 1938.
Roughly 50 years later, Maria tries to get back a golden Gustav Klimt painting that was stolen by the Nazis from her formerly wealthy Jewish family. This painting shows Altmann’s aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer, better known as “The Woman in Gold”…
Read my whole film review for Woman in Gold here.
About the Location:
For me, Woman in Gold was definitely the movie that inspired me most to book my first trip to Vienna. I just loved all those beautiful art nouveau buildings (German: "Jugendstil") you see in the film.
The film also made me curious to learn more about the Viennese artist Gustav Klimt and his famous paintings.
If you like, you can embark on the same walk between two Belvedere art galleries (Upper and Lower) as the film stars do in Woman in Gold. With the Vienna Pass, you will also have free entry to the two Belvedere art galleries. In the Upper Belvedere, you can then marvel at Klimt’s famous “Kiss”.
Other museums that exhibit Klimt paintings include: Leopold Museum, Wien Museum Karlsplatz, Secession, Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum), the Burgtheater and MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art.
For more details of where to trace Gustav Klimt's artistic legacy in Vienna, check out this Klimt article by the Vienna Tourist Board.
Other filming locations of Woman in Gold include: Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts, the Vienna State Opera, the Holocaust Memorial and Judenplatz, Vienna's City Hall, Hotel Sacher, Wiener Konzerthaus, the Giant Ferris Wheel, Felderstraße, St. Ulrichsplatz, Rooseveltplatz, Palais Auersperg, Semperdepot and Kaiserwiese.
3. Have a coffee break at Café Sperl as seen in Before Sunrise (1995)
Now it's time for a typical Viennese coffee break. How about the Café Sperl? The coffee house, which still looks exactly the same as it did during the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, served as a filming location in two Vienna-based films – the romantic movie Before Sunrise (1995) and the Sigmund Freud film A Dangerous Method (2011).
About the Film:
In Before Sunrise, an American guy called Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and a French girl called Céline (Julie Delpy) meet on the train from Budapest and decide to spontaneously get off in Vienna. The pair then spends the next day and night getting to know both each other and the city…
About the Location:
Vienna is world-famous for its Coffee House Culture and the Café Sperl is one of those traditional coffee houses that haven't changed a bit since the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.
Try one of the many coffee specialities here, such as the "Überstürzter Neumann". For this "upside down" coffee, whipped cream is added first and then covered with double mocha. Yum…
You could also try the famous Sachertorte here – a must-do foodie experience when in Vienna.
Other filming locations of Before Sunrise include: Kleines Café, Giant Ferries Wheel, Friedhof der Namenlosen, Maria am Gestade, Zollamtssteg Bridge and Maria Theresien Platz.
4. Wander in Freud's footsteps at the Sigmund Freud Museum
– as seen in A Dangerous Method (2011)
About the Film:
Inspired by true events, A Dangerous Method tells the story of the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), who starts an affair with his patient Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley).
A lot of the film is set at Küsnacht on the Zürichsee lakeshore in Switzerland (Jung's home and workplace). But there are several occasions when Jung travels to Vienna to meet famous psychologist Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen).
About the Location:
Jung and Freud hang out at several Viennese locations – including Freud's real life home and workplace at Berggasse No. 19.
With the Vienna Pass., you can visit this attraction as well as several other homes of Vienna's famous former residents for free.
You have to ring the doorbell to get into the home where Freud lived and practised from 1891 until 1938. I thought this was pretty unique as it really adds to the feeling that you're stepping back in time here and entering someone's home.
You will enter the home through the hallway, in which Jung parks his horse carriage in the film. And you can see a couch here. Although I'm not sure if it's "THE couch" as this is something the Sigmund Freud Museum in London (Freud's adopted home in exile) claims to have.
Other filming locations of A Dangerous Method include: Café Sperl and Schloss Belvedere
5. Take a ride on the Giant Ferries Wheel
– as seen in The Third Man (1949)
About the Film:
The black-and-white classic The Third Man is set shortly after the end of World War II in 1949 – when the city of Vienna was about 90 % destroyed, occupied by four different allied forces – and quite chaotic.
The film centres on Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), an American who is given a job in Vienna by his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). But when Holly arrives in Vienna he learns that Lime has died. Holly then goes on to investigate what appears to be a suspicious death.
In 1999, The Third Man was named "the greatest British film of all time" by the British Film Institute. However, in a 2017 poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine, the Vienna-set classic was ranked the second best British film ever.
About the Location:
No matter if it's best or second best: in Vienna, The Third Man nostalgia is pretty much kicking and alive – even after 68 years! The film is still shown several times a week in selected Vienna cinemas and there is even a whole museum dedicated to The Third Man.
Plus, you can retrace all The Third Man's iconic Vienna filming locations in a special film location walking tour.
With the Vienna Pass., you can also take a free ride on the Giant Ferries Wheel. The Wheel at the "Prater" amusement fair is one of Vienna's most popular sightseeing attractions and filming locations (it appeared in almost all films presented in this blog post).
Other filming locations of The Third Man include: Hotel Sacher, Morzinplatz, 8 Schreyvogelgasse, Palais Pallavicini, Reichsbrücke, Zentralfriedhof, Neuer Markt
6. Marvel at the inside of the neo-gothic Votive Church
– as seen in The Pillars of the Earth (2010)
About the Film:
The Pillars of the Earth, a British TV mini series based on Ken Follett's novel of the same name, tells the stories about the power struggles during the long-term construction of a medieval cathedral in 12th century England.
Set in the fictional English town of Kingsbridge, much of the filming took place in and around Budapest, Hungary. However, some scenes were also shot at Vienna's lesser known Votive Church (or Votivkirche in German).
About the Location:
It's free to enter the beautiful church, which is actually not very old at all. Built from 1856 to 1879, it was designed in the neo-Gothic style following the attempted assassination of Austria's Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph in 1853.
Unless otherwise credited, all photos by © Sonja Irani | filmfantravel.com
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