Legendary Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr died at age 70.
The art house director was known for his dark films.
Damnation, Sátántangó and The Turin Horse, among others, are some of his distinctive works.
Béla Tarr, the Hungarian filmmaker, best known for films such as Damnation and Sátántangó, has passed away. He was 70. Filmmaker Bence Fliegauf confirmed Tarr’s death on Tuesday (January 6, 2026) morning to Hungary’s national news agency MTI, on behalf of Tarr's family.
Béla Tarr death reason
The European Film Academy, of which Tarr had been a member since 1997, also shared the news of Tarr’s demise on its website. The Academy said Tarr breathed his last "after a long and serious illness."
In a statement, the academy mourned the death of "an outstanding director and a personality with a strong political voice, who is not only deeply respected by his colleagues but also celebrated by audiences worldwide."
"The grieving family asks for the understanding of the press and the public and that they not be sought for a statement during these difficult days," it added.
Who was Béla Tarr?
Born in Pécs, Hungary, on July 21, 1955, Tarr started his career working at Balázs Béla Stúdió, where he made his feature film debut with Family Nest (1977), for which he won the Grand Prix at the Mannheim Film Festival. He later enrolled in the Academy of Theatre and Film in Budapest.
After graduating in 1982, he established Társulás Filmstúdió, where he worked until the studio was closed in 1985 for political reasons. Tarr received his first international recognition with the 1988 film Damnation, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. He bagged the Best Young Film Award at the European Film Awards.
Tarr's films
The pioneer of the “slow cinema” movement, Tarr's films were mostly dark, long and had black-and-white visuals, with less dialogue, a contrast from the traditional narrative, which depicted everyday life in Eastern Europe. His 1994 film Sátántangó, which showcases the struggle of a small Hungarian village, went on to become one of his greatest and critically acclaimed films.
Tarr's final feature was Turin Horse (2011), which received the Jury Prize at Berlin. In 2023, he was honoured with the European Film Academy’s Honorary Award.
