Bonus trip · Buildings Walk
Belvárosi Mozi
Vaszy Viktor tér 3 · 1920 · Vilmos Zsigmond Hall
Films have been shown here since 1920, and the big hall bears the name of a Szeged-born Oscar-winning cinematographer who in 1956 filmed with a camera hidden in a shopping bag.
It opened on 8 September 1920, designed by Endre Sebestyén, on the same square as the theatre. According to the city's tourism site it is the only cinema in Hungary built as a cinema that has been running continuously ever since.
It was fully renovated in 2019. The 530-seat ground-floor hall with its balcony is named after Vilmos Zsigmond. The two smaller halls are named after film theorist Béla Balázs and director József Csőke.
Vilmos Zsigmond was born in Szeged on 16 June 1930 and lived here until he was twenty. His father was a well-known footballer and coach. He finished school at the Piarists in 1948, then learned photography in Balázs Becsky's studio on Kárász utca.
In 1956, as a film student in Budapest, he and his friend László Kovács filmed the revolution with a camera hidden in a shopping bag with a hole cut in it. They escaped to Austria with nearly 10,000 metres of film. In America, CBS bought the footage.
In Hollywood he started on cheap B-movies, sometimes credited as William Zsigmond. His breakthrough was Robert Altman's western McCabe & Mrs. Miller in 1971. He also shot Deliverance and The Deer Hunter, and in 1978 he won an Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
In 2004 he became an honorary citizen of Szeged. He died in California on 1 January 2016, aged 85. Every year the Belvárosi Mozi hosts the international film festival named after him, which rewards cinematography. In 2026 it was held for the tenth time.
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- True8 September 1920: the cinema opens, designed by Endre Sebestyén.
- Allegedly“The only cinema in Hungary built as a cinema and running continuously since”: that's how the city's tourism site puts it.
- TrueThe 530-seat main hall is named after Vilmos Zsigmond.
- TrueVilmos Zsigmond (Szeged, 1930 – Big Sur, 2016): Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, BAFTA for The Deer Hunter.
- TrueHonorary citizen of Szeged since 2004.
- TrueThe Vilmos Zsigmond International Film Festival is held here; in 2026 for the tenth time.