Béla Tarr, acclaimed Hungarian director of ‘Sátántangó,’ dies at 70

Photo credit: Bálint Dezső / BIFF - Budapest International Film Festival

Béla Tarr, the internationally celebrated Hungarian film director known for landmark works including Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies, has died. He was 70.

Tarr passed away early Tuesday after a long illness, his family and the Hungarian Filmmakers’ Association said in statements. Filmmaker Benedek Fliegauf confirmed the news to the Hungarian News Agency (MTI) on behalf of the family.

Born in 1955 in Pécs, Tarr began making films as a teenager and rose to prominence through Hungary’s experimental film scene. He made his first feature, Family Nest, in 1977 at the Béla Balázs Studio. Tarr later directed Hungary’s first independent feature, Damnation, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1988 to international acclaim.

Tarr’s work is characterized by long takes, stark black-and-white cinematography, and an often apocalyptic portrayal of human society. His seven-and-a-half-hour Sátántangó, adapted from a novel by 2025 Nobel Prize winner László Krasznahorkai, is widely regarded as a masterpiece of world cinema. Other notable films include Werckmeister Harmonies, Prefab People (Panelkapcsolat), Almanac of Fall (Őszi almanach), and The Turin Horse, which premiered in 2012 and marked his retirement from feature filmmaking.

In addition to his films, Tarr was a respected educator and mentor, teaching at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin and founding the TT Film Workshop in 2003, which he led until 2011. He also supported younger Hungarian filmmakers as a producer and executive producer.

His contributions earned him numerous honors, including the Kossuth Prize, the Béla Balázs Award, and international recognition such as the Konrad Wolf Prize and the Knight’s Cross of the French Order of Arts and Letters. In 2023, he received the European Film Academy’s Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award.

Tarr is survived by his family and longtime collaborator, co-director and editor Ágnes Hranitzky.