Actor Tom Cruise tearing through the Old Town alleyway Zelezna towards the Estates Theatre; Mozart conducting an opera – these are just a couple of scenes from the many classics in film history shot in Prague, Czech Republic.
Beyond the Cruise spy thriller Mission: Impossible (1994) and Amadeus (1984), winner of eight Oscars, recent movies include Blade Runner 2099 (out in late November) and A Place Called Home.
And then there are the television shows, says Hedvika Petrzelkova, a public relations officer at the Czech Film Commission. “There are around 30 to 40 film and TV series projects each year.”
As Prague is a city popular with producers and film crews, it’s the place to go for film fans who like city breaks.
Petrzelkova spells out why the Czech capital is popular as a film location. “The historic city, with its Gothic, Renaissance and, above all, Baroque architecture, is in good condition. What’s more, it’s not as expensive to film here as it is elsewhere. And the Czech film crews have ‘golden hands’, as they say here. They’re known for being able to sort anything out.”
Compare films with reality and you’ll recognise Prague straight away – even if it doesn’t always play itself, but sometimes “stars” as Paris (France), Vienna (Austria) or London (England).
Check out nine must-see stops for a trip to Prague.
Old Town Square
Prague’s most significant square, the Old Town Square (Staromestske Namesti), exudes history, smells of the horses from the carriages, and is flanked by ornate facades and the twin-towered Tyn Church.
“That was Notre Dame in the film Van Helsing,” says Eva Kupr, who offers film-themed tours for visitors.
The Old Town Square also served as a backdrop in the action films xXx starring Vin Diesel and Bangkok Dangerous starring Nicolas Cage.
Charles Bridge
This is where crowds surged across the Vltava, Cruise sprinted ahead as agent Ethan Hunt, and Oscar-winner Jon Voight plunged into the river. In Mission: Impossible, neither of them had time to appreciate the city’s beauty.
In the 2006 horror film The Omen, Father Brennan (Pete Postlethwaite) delivered shocking news to the protagonist Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) beneath the bridge. A little further on, in the park on Kampa Island, Matt Damon tried to get some sleep on his first night in Zurich in The Bourne Identity.
Rudolfinum
Within sight of the Charles Bridge stands the Neo-Renaissance Rudolfinum. A grand staircase, flanked by garlands of lanterns, leads up to it. Classical music resonates through the concert hall. This is the home of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
The magnificent building featured as a location in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen starring Sean Connery; Hannibal Rising; and Marguerite.
“It’s about a rich, powerful woman who wanted to be a singer but couldn’t sing. In that film, Prague is Paris,” says Petrzelkova of Marguerite.
Bluelight Bar
To the west, the Charles Bridge stretches towards the Mala Strana district, where the Bluelight Bar is bathed not in blue but orange light.
In marital drama Endstation Prague, Danish film star Mads Mikkelsen takes a seat at the bar and listens to a live performance by a young Czech woman with whom he is having a brief affair.
Bartender Anna Vechtikova isn’t familiar with the 2006 film, but years ago she played herself in an episode of a German crime series.
However, when she saw the results, she was disappointed. The scene was over in a flash, she says. “They’d been filming all day, and I was absolutely knackered.”
National Museum
“Bond. James Bond.” Yes, he was here too, played by Daniel Craig. In Casino Royale, we see the museum’s vast, elegant foyer on Wenceslas Square – replete with arches, runners and diminutive – starring as a hotel lobby.
It has worn many guises, from the US Embassy in Mission: Impossible, and as a medical school in From Hell which starred Johnny Depp.
Otherwise, the Narodni Muzeum (National Museum) is the number one destination when it comes to the country’s natural and cultural history, with the 100m-long Neo-Renaissance building itself playing a part in that storied past.
Prague Castle
The sprawling complex of Prague Castle – Prazsky Hrad – a Unesco World Heritage Site and now the seat of the president of the Czech Republic, has featured in numerous films.
You may have seen it in The Brothers Bloom starring Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody, or Shanghai Knights with Jackie Chan, where the Matthias Gate was cast as the entrance to Buckingham Palace.
Equally striking is the neighbouring Hradcany Square (Hradcanske Namesti), which came to life in Les Miserables.
Meanwhile in Amadeus, a masterpiece by director Milos Forman, house number seven was Mozart’s home. Visitors can still marvel at the wooden portal and the door fittings there.
Strahov Monastery
Visitors can still sense the monastery’s (Strahovsky Klaster) mysterious aura today when they approach the barriers to the Baroque monastery library, split into two sections.
Surrounded by ceiling frescoes and tens of thousands of books, the library stood in for the Vatican in The Omen and the British House of Lords in Casino Royale.
St Cyril and Methodius
This Orthodox church is a unique spot where reality and cinema blend together as nowhere else. In 1942, resistance fighters who assassinated Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich took refuge in the crypt, but their hiding place was betrayed.
In Operation Anthropoid (2017), later Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) starred in a leading role.
Petrzelkova says the original church, Kostel Svatehp Cyrila a Metodeje, was blended with a replica at the Barrandov Film Studios in Prague, a move often adopted by productions to protect fragile sites from damage during action shots.
Riverbank area
Petrzelkova describes a scene: “Ana de Armas arrives in a boat and walks through the round glass entrance into the Avoid Cafe, but in the film that was the entrance to a hotel.”
This is from action thriller From The World of John Wick: Ballerina, released in cinemas in mid-2025.
“Some scenes for Ballerina were also filmed a little further down the river on the Avoid Floating Gallery with Keanu Reeves,” says barman Emil Obsluha.
Recently, he and his colleague Michael Kadlec got to meet another Hollywood star up close: Orlando Bloom, filming a beer commercial at the Avoid Cafe. — ANDREAS DROUVE/dpa
