Athens on Film: Melina Mercouri, Highsmith and Shah Rukh Khan

The golden age: Stella and the Athens of Melina Mercouri

The 1950s and 1960s were the golden age of Greek cinema, when the Athens studios turned out comedies, melodramas and musicals for packed summer and winter cinemas. Michael Cacoyannis’s Stella (1955), Melina Mercouri’s first film, follows a free-spirited taverna singer in Athens who refuses to marry, and it made Mercouri a star.

Cacoyannis went on to make Zorba the Greek on Crete; Mercouri, after Never on Sunday, became one of the most famous Greek women of her century. The Greek Film Archive, in Kerameikos, keeps the films of this era alive with screenings through the year.

Cinemas in Athens, including the Greek Film Archive →

Never on Sunday (1960): Piraeus

Jules Dassin wrote, directed and co-starred in this comedy, playing Homer Thrace, an earnest American who arrives in Piraeus determined to ‘improve’ Ilya, a warm-hearted, life-loving woman of the port, played by Melina Mercouri. The harbour, its quays, ships and waterfront tavernas are as much a part of the film as its stars.

Mercouri shared the best actress award at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, and Manos Hadjidakis won the Oscar for Best Original Song for the title song, known in Greek as Ta Paidia tou Peiraia, the Children of Piraeus. It is still sung all over Greece.

Piraeus is twenty minutes from the city centre on Metro line 1, and its harbour is where most island ferries leave from today.

There is no official trailer for this film on the studio’s own channels, so we do not embed one.

The Two Faces of January (2014): the Acropolis

Hossein Amini’s first film as a director, from a Patricia Highsmith novel, is set in 1962. Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst play a glamorous American couple touring Greece, and Oscar Isaac a young tour guide who becomes entangled in their secret after a death in their Athens hotel.

The film opens on the Acropolis, among the columns of the Parthenon, and moves through the streets of Athens before the story flees to Crete. It is a handsome period piece and a fine evocation of the city’s early tourist years.

Chalte Chalte (2003): Shah Rukh Khan in Athens

Aziz Mirza’s romance stars Shah Rukh Khan as Raj and Rani Mukerji as Priya, the fashion designer he falls for. It was one of the first major Bollywood films shot partly in Greece: when Priya’s work takes her to Greece, Raj follows her, and the Greek scenes were filmed in Athens and on Mykonos. Rani Mukerji has recalled that it was her first visit to Greece.

Since then, Greece has become a favourite with Indian film-makers, from Bang Bang! on Santorini to Tiger Zinda Hai on Naxos. Our sister guides have the island scenes and the story of Shah Rukh Khan’s Mumbai.

The Greek Islands on Film →   Shah Rukh Khan’s Mumbai →   The Bollywood stars →

Set in Athens, filmed elsewhere

Not every Athens on screen is Athens. The riot-filled Athens chase in Jason Bourne (2016), with Matt Damon, was filmed in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, dressed as Syntagma Square. The real Syntagma, with the Parliament and the changing of the Evzones guard, is a short walk from Plaka.

Under the stars: open-air cinemas in Athens and on the Riviera

The best way to enjoy films in Athens is the Athenian way: in a summer garden cinema, with a drink, a warm night and, at Cine Thisio, the floodlit Acropolis above the screen. The city’s open-air cinemas run from about May to October, and most show films in their original language with Greek subtitles.

On the Athens Riviera, the tradition carries on by the sea: Cine Flisvos on the Palaio Faliro waterfront, the Arian and Marilena cinemas in Glyfada and the Akti in Vouliagmeni. Check the programmes before you go.

All our Athens cinemas →   The Athens Riviera →

From Athens to the islands on film

Many of Greece’s most famous film locations are a ferry ride from Piraeus. Hydra, the island of Boy on a Dolphin, is about two hours away by fast boat; Spetses, where The Lost Daughter and Glass Onion were filmed, a little further. Further afield are Amorgos, the island of The Big Blue, and Skopelos, the Mamma Mia! island, reached by way of Skiathos.

The Greek Islands on Film →   Amorgos →

Our advice

Watch Never on Sunday before you take the train down to Piraeus, and save The Two Faces of January for the evening after your visit to the Acropolis. Then end a summer day at Cine Thisio, under the Parthenon.

Over to you. Which Athens film do you love, and which scene would you add? Tell us below or in our forum: we read every message, and the best suggestions will join this page.

Cinemas in Athens →   Join the conversation in our forum →

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