Red Sparrow is a 2018 American spy thriller directed by Francis Lawrence and based on Jason Matthews’ 2013 novel of the same name. Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova, a Russian ballerina whose career ends after a serious injury on stage. With her livelihood and her mother’s medical care at risk, she accepts an assignment from her uncle Ivan Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts), a senior Russian intelligence officer, and is subsequently recruited into a secret programme that trains agents in seduction and psychological manipulation. Her first major assignment brings her into contact with CIA operative Nathaniel Nash (Joel Edgerton), who is protecting a high-ranking Russian informant. The film also stars Jeremy Irons, Charlotte Rampling, Ciarán Hinds, Thekla Reuten and Mary-Louise Parker.
Red Sparrow (2018) was filmed mainly in Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary, with additional locations in Bratislava, Vienna and London. Principal photography began on 5 January 2017 at Heroes’ Square in Budapest and continued through the spring. Although much of the story takes place in Moscow, the production did not film in Russia, instead using Hungarian and Slovak locations to represent the Russian capital. Budapest also appears as itself during the film’s espionage sequences. The production originally considered using the city to represent Helsinki, where much of the novel takes place, but director Francis Lawrence and his team eventually decided to relocate those parts of the story to Budapest.
The opening sequence was filmed at Heroes’ Square (Hősök tere), one of Budapest’s best-known public spaces. Dominika is seen hurrying across the square towards the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, passing the Műcsarnok Kunsthalle on her way to a performance. The imposing building used for the fictional theatre’s exterior was actually the Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti Múzeum), on the northern side of the square. Its Neoclassical façade was digitally altered with additional architectural features, including the sculptures and roof decorations associated with the real Bolshoi Theatre. The opening scenes were among the first completed by the production on 5 January 2017.
The ballet performance itself was filmed at the Hungarian State Opera House at 22 Andrássy Avenue in Budapest. Opened in 1884 and designed by architect Miklós Ybl, the Neo-Renaissance theatre provided the auditorium and stage for Dominika’s performance as a leading dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet. She performs alongside Konstantin (Sergei Polunin), but the production ends disastrously when another dancer lands on her extended leg, causing a severe fracture that destroys her career. The sequence was filmed inside the real opera house, with its ornate balconies, gilded decorations and horseshoe-shaped auditorium visible around the stage. The filmmakers had to coordinate their schedule with the theatre’s regular performances, and stagehands were preparing sets for evening productions as the film crew finished its work.
Several scenes involving the Russian intelligence service were filmed at the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library, housed in the historic Wenckheim Palace at 1 Szabó Ervin Square in Budapest. Built between 1887 and 1889 for Count Frigyes Wenckheim, the Neo-Baroque palace contains elaborate reading rooms that retain much of their original decoration, including chandeliers, carved woodwork, gilded ceilings and marble fireplaces. These rooms became part of the headquarters of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, where Ivan Egorov meets senior officials General Vladimir Korchnoi (Jeremy Irons) and Colonel Zakharov (Ciarán Hinds). The production used the palace’s existing interiors to represent the formal offices where intelligence assignments are discussed and the agency’s senior officers make decisions about Dominika’s future.
The exterior of the Russian intelligence headquarters was filmed at the former Istropolis complex, also known as Dom odborov, at Trnavské mýto in Bratislava, Slovakia. The large modernist building, developed during the communist period, provided the setting for Dominika’s meetings with her uncle outside the agency’s offices. Its broad entrance, stone façade and monumental proportions appear in the scenes where Ivan pressures her into accepting an assignment after her ballet career has ended. The building was part of a larger cultural and congress complex designed by architects Ferdinand Konček, Iľja Skoček and Ľubomír Titl. Istropolis was demolished in 2022 to make way for a new development, leaving the location substantially changed from its appearance in the film.
Another major Budapest location is the New York Palace at 9–11 Erzsébet Boulevard, which became the fictional Hotel Andarja in Moscow. The building originally opened in 1894 as the headquarters of the New York Life Insurance Company and was operating as the Boscolo Budapest Hotel during filming. Its richly decorated New York Café was used for the sequence in which Dominika meets the wealthy Russian businessman Dimitry Ustinov (Kristof Konrad), whom she has been instructed to seduce. The café’s elaborate columns, gilded ceilings and ornate furnishings are clearly visible as the two sit together. Dominika subsequently accompanies Ustinov to a hotel room, where the assignment turns into a violent assassination carried out by Russian operatives. Although the hotel and café were filmed on location, the bedroom used for the assassination was a constructed set.
Dominika is subsequently sent to State School Four, the secret training facility where young recruits are taught to become intelligence operatives known as sparrows. The school exterior was filmed at Festetics Palace in Dég, approximately 80 kilometres southwest of Budapest. The Neoclassical residence was completed in the early nineteenth century for the Festetics family and stands within extensive landscaped grounds. In the film, Dominika arrives at the isolated estate to begin her training under the severe supervision of Matron (Charlotte Rampling). Its long façade, formal entrance and surrounding park appear as the recruits assemble outside and participate in physical exercises. During one sequence, Dominika and fellow trainee Anya (Sasha Frolova) are required to walk barefoot in circles outside the building, a scene filmed during freezing January weather.
Most of the school’s interior scenes were filmed elsewhere, at a former workers’ cultural centre adjoining an abandoned industrial complex in Dunaújváros, Hungary. Such cultural buildings were commonly constructed beside factories during the communist period to provide theatres and recreational facilities for employees. Production designer Maria Djurkovic adapted the existing building to represent the training school’s classrooms and examination rooms, where Matron subjects the recruits to lessons in surveillance, seduction and emotional control. The filmmakers treated the cultural centre as a separate wing of the fictional institution, combining its interior spaces with the exterior of Festetics Palace despite their very different architectural styles. Additional palace interiors were filmed at Festetics Palace in Keszthely, near Lake Balaton, a separate historic residence that should not be confused with the building in Dég.
After completing her training, Dominika meets her uncle at Lotz Hall, an ornate interior at 39 Andrássy Avenue in Budapest. The hall occupies the upper level of the former Paris Department Store, a historic commercial building that later housed the Alexandra Bookstore and Book Café. Named after painter Károly Lotz, whose frescoes decorate its ceiling, the hall provided the setting for a conversation in which Ivan gives Dominika a new identity and explains her assignment involving CIA officer Nathaniel Nash. The restaurant’s elaborate painted ceiling and decorative columns are visible during their meeting. The café had closed as a regular business in 2017, around the time of filming, and the space subsequently reopened for a period under the name Café Párisi.
A separate storyline involving Nash begins in what is supposed to be Moscow’s Gorky Park. The sequence was filmed at Kerepesi Cemetery, also known as Fiumei Road Cemetery, at 16–18 Fiumei Road in Budapest. The location is the Labor Movement Mausoleum, a modernist memorial completed in 1958. Nash arrives for a clandestine nighttime meeting with a Russian intelligence source known as Marble, but the operation is interrupted when Russian security officers approach. He helps the informant escape and runs through the cemetery, passing the mausoleum’s distinctive stone reliefs and monumental architecture before reaching safety. The production initially encountered difficulties obtaining permission to film at the cemetery, which had previously restricted most commercial film projects. Director Francis Lawrence personally attended a meeting with the cemetery authorities to secure approval for the sequence.
When Dominika is assigned to Budapest, the city’s Russian intelligence office is represented by another building in Bratislava. The Slovak Radio Building at 1 Mýtna Street, famous for its inverted-pyramid design, appears as the headquarters where Dominika reports to her local superior, Maxim Volontov (Douglas Hodge). Completed in 1983, the unusual structure consists of an enormous steel framework enclosing another pyramid-shaped volume. Its sharply angled exterior is unmistakable in the film, although the building is presented as part of Budapest rather than the Slovak capital. The production also used a residential building at 18 Zoltán Street in central Budapest, known as Adria Palace, for the apartment shared by Dominika and fellow Russian agent Marta Yelenova (Thekla Reuten). Their accommodation becomes an important location as Dominika begins investigating Marta’s activities and discovers information about another intelligence operation.
Dominika’s first attempt to establish contact with Nash takes place at a public swimming pool. The exterior was filmed at the Császár-Komjádi Béla Swimming Complex at 8 Árpád fejedelem útja in Budapest, where Nash regularly swims. Dominika waits for him outside the building and approaches him near the corner of Frankel Leó Street and Komjádi Béla Street, introducing herself as someone who has encountered him by chance. The actual pool interior, however, was filmed at the Fabó Éva Swimming Pool at 9 Építők Road in Dunaújváros. Its large indoor pool and spectator areas appear during the swimming sequence, with the two facilities edited together to represent a single location in Budapest.
The fictional American Embassy in Budapest was filmed partly at the Semmelweis University Theoretical Building at 4 Nagyvárad Square. Completed during the 1970s, the modernist university building contains an expansive hall decorated with large stained-glass panels designed by Hungarian artist Gyula Hincz. This distinctive interior became the embassy’s Roosevelt Conference Room, where Dominika encounters Nash again during a diplomatic reception. The stained-glass installation forms a prominent background as the characters move through the gathering and continue their attempts to discover each other’s intentions. Although the story identifies the building as an American diplomatic facility, the actual United States Embassy is located elsewhere in Budapest, at Szabadság Square.
The production also used several of Budapest’s existing restaurants and nightlife establishments. HalloBár at 65 Király Street appears when Dominika meets Maxim Volontov in a strip club and uses the intelligence she has gathered to threaten his position within the agency. During the conversation, she makes it clear that she can expose his activities unless he provides a favourable report on her work. Another scene was filmed at Callas Café at 20 Andrássy Avenue, immediately beside the Hungarian State Opera House. Nash arrives at the restaurant expecting to meet Dominika for dinner, but she deliberately fails to appear. Instead, she watches him from outside and follows him when he leaves, hoping to discover where he lives. The café’s interior and entrance are visible during the sequence, including its name on the glass door as Nash departs.
The film briefly moves to Vienna, Austria, when Dominika visits Bank Graf Vienna to open a secret bank account. The bank’s exterior was filmed at Michaelerplatz 2, in the former Café Griensteidl building opposite the Hofburg Palace. The square is surrounded by historic buildings, including the curved façade of the Michaelertrakt, which forms part of the imperial palace complex. Dominika approaches the building and enters to arrange the account, which becomes important to her efforts to manipulate the intelligence organisations competing for her loyalty. The Austrian location was used during a single day of filming, with the surrounding streets and architecture identifying the scene as taking place in Vienna rather than Budapest or Moscow.
Back in Budapest, the historic Hotel Gellért at 2 Szent Gellért Square provided the setting for a CIA interrogation of Dominika. Opened in 1918 beside the Danube, the Art Nouveau hotel is closely associated with the neighbouring Gellért Thermal Baths. In the film, Dominika is subjected to a polygraph examination while American intelligence officers question her about information she has obtained from the Russians. The hotel’s historic interior provides the setting for the meeting, during which the CIA learns about Stephanie Boucher (Mary-Louise Parker), an American political official involved in the sale of classified information. The film also uses exterior views of Budapest’s Danube waterfront, incorporating the river and surrounding architecture into the scenes set in the Hungarian capital.
The London sequences were filmed at the Corinthia Hotel on Whitehall Place in Westminster. The five-star hotel, housed in a grand nineteenth-century building that formerly served as the Metropole Hotel, became the setting for the operation involving Stephanie Boucher. Dominika travels to London with Volontov to obtain classified material from Boucher, while secretly cooperating with Nash and the CIA to substitute false information for the genuine documents. The exchange takes place at the hotel’s Northall Bar, with the surrounding hotel interiors and entrance also appearing as the characters arrive and leave. The real hotel was used for both interior and exterior filming, providing an identifiable London setting for the operation.
The production also filmed at Heathrow Airport, where Nash follows Dominika as she prepares to return to Russia. Terminal 2, known as the Queen’s Terminal, was used for the departure scenes as Nash attempts to reach her before she boards her flight. He is unable to follow her beyond the departure controls, bringing their confrontation to an end as she proceeds towards her plane. The London and Heathrow sequences were filmed after the production had completed its Hungarian, Slovak and Austrian location work, with principal photography concluding in May 2017.
Heroes’ Square
Heroes’ Square appears in A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), Red Sparrow (2018), and Gemini Man (2019).
Kerepesi Cemetery
Kerepesi Cemetery appears in Dune: Part Two (2024), Red Sparrow (2018), and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2008).