The Most Beautiful Film Locations in the Czech Republic
8 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful film locations in the Czech Republic are St. Vitus Cathedral, Adršpach-Teplice Rocks and Hluboká Castle. The list covers 8 film locations. Last updated 14 October 2026.
The Czech Republic, and Prague above all, is one of the most filmed places in Europe. The country came through the twentieth century with its historic towns and castles largely intact, Barrandov Studios in Prague has been a major production centre since the 1930s, and the old streets can stand in for Vienna, Paris or almost any European capital of the past. Beyond the cities, sandstone rock towns and forested hills supply fantasy landscapes that look nothing like everyday Europe.
In Prague, the Gothic St. Vitus Cathedral rises within the Prague Castle complex above the city, its spires and flying buttresses forming one of the most recognisable silhouettes in film. Charles Bridge, lined with Baroque statues, crosses the Vltava between the Old Town and the Lesser Town and has appeared in countless productions. The Estates Theatre, where Mozart's Don Giovanni premiered, played itself in Miloš Forman's Amadeus, lit by candlelight. The Strahov Monastery Library, with its painted vaults and walls of gilded bookcases, is a ready-made scholarly interior.
The castles and countryside add romance and strangeness. Karlštejn Castle, founded by Emperor Charles IV in the fourteenth century to keep the imperial regalia, rises in tiers above a wooded valley. Hluboká Castle in South Bohemia was rebuilt in the nineteenth century in a white Tudor Gothic style modelled on Windsor. In the north-east, the Adršpach-Teplice Rocks form a labyrinth of sandstone towers and narrow gorges.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | St. Vitus Cathedral | Cathedral | |
| 2 | Adršpach-Teplice Rocks | Rock formation | |
| 3 | Hluboká Castle | Castle | |
| 4 | Charles Bridge | Bridge | ✓ |
| 5 | Kroměříž Castle | Palace | ✓ |
| 6 | Estates Theatre | Opera house | |
| 7 | Karlštejn Castle | Castle | |
| 8 | Strahov Monastery Library | Library building |
01 St. Vitus Cathedral
Katedrála svatého Víta v Praze
Czech Republic · 1.7 km from Prague50.091° N 14.401° E
Image by Duernsteiner from Pixabay St Vitus Cathedral, formally dedicated to Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus and Adalbert, is the seat of the Archbishop of Prague and the largest and most important church in the Czech Republic. 8 m high, and holds the tombs of Bohemian kings and Holy Roman emperors. It is the third church on the spot: Duke Wenceslaus founded a rotunda here around 930, after obtaining a relic of St Vitus, and a Romanesque basilica followed.
Did you know? The Zikmund bell in the great south tower, cast by Tomáš Jaroš in 1549, weighs about 16.5 tonnes and is the largest bell in the Czech Republic.
02 Adršpach-Teplice Rocks
Czech Republic50.611° N 16.115° E
Lestat (Jan Mehlich) · CC BY-SA 3.0 The Adršpach-Teplice Rocks in north-eastern Bohemia are the largest rock city in Central Europe: a labyrinth of sandstone towers, walls and gorges formed when a continuous plateau of sandstone, laid down in a Cretaceous sea, was split by tectonic movement and then carved by water, frost and wind.
Did you know? In 1824 a forest fire smouldered among the rocks for several weeks and destroyed the entire forest around the rock city.
03 Hluboká Castle
Zámek Hluboká nad Vltavou
Czech Republic · 8 km from České Budějovice49.051° N 14.442° E
Michal Klajban · CC BY 4.0 Rising above the woods and the Vltava valley north of České Budějovice, Hluboká looks less like a Bohemian castle than a piece of Victorian England set down in South Bohemia. The rock has been fortified since the second half of the thirteenth century, when a Gothic royal castle stood here, and it was rebuilt several times for its later lords before the Schwarzenberg family acquired it in 1661.
Did you know? The castle has served as a film location, including for Shanghai Knights and as the Eastern Coven in Underworld: Blood Wars.
04 Charles Bridge
Czech Republic · 0.8 km from Prague50.086° N 14.412° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by Zef51 from Pixabay The most-repeated story about Charles Bridge is that its mortar was strengthened with eggs, shipped in from towns and villages across Bohemia on the emperor's order.
Did you know? Until 1870 the bridge was simply called the Stone Bridge or the Prague Bridge; it only took Charles IV's name in the 19th century.
05 Kroměříž Castle
Czech Republic · 20.3 km from Zlín49.300° N 17.393° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Pudelek (Marcin Szala) · CC BY-SA 4.0 For centuries the small Moravian town of Kroměříž was the summer seat of the bishops — from 1777 archbishops — of Olomouc, and their residence here, together with two very different gardens, was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1998. UNESCO's reasoning is candid: the palace is a fine but typical princely residence; what is rare is the Baroque garden layout that survives around it almost intact.
06 Estates Theatre
Stavovské divadlo
Czech Republic · 0.1 km from Prague50.086° N 14.424° E
VitVit · CC BY-SA 4.0 Prague's Estates Theatre is the one working playhouse in the world where Mozart himself conducted the first performance of an opera still in the repertoire.
Did you know? During the 1983–1991 reconstruction the red, white and gold auditorium was redone in white, gold and blue, shortly after Miloš Forman had filmed Amadeus there.
07 Karlštejn Castle
Karlštejn
Czech Republic · 23.5 km from Prague49.940° N 14.188° E
Image by martinpalata from Pixabay Karlštejn rises in tiers above a wooded valley of the Berounka, its walls and towers stepping up the rock from the imperial palace to the Marian Tower and finally to the massive Great Tower at the summit.
Did you know? The Chapel of the Holy Cross was sealed behind four sets of plated doors with nine locks, with a room above it for a special guard.
08 Strahov Monastery Library
Strahovský klášter
Czech Republic · 2.4 km from Prague50.086° N 14.389° E
Barnos · CC BY-SA 4.0 High on the hill behind Prague Castle, the Premonstratensian canons have kept their monastery at Strahov since 1143, when it was founded by Duke Vladislaus II and Bishop Jindřich Zdík after a first attempt three years earlier had failed.
Did you know? The library's greatest treasure is the Strahov Gospels, a manuscript made at Tours around 860 to 865, later bound with four Romanesque enamel discs from about 1180.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful film locations in the Czech Republic?
- On our list, St. Vitus Cathedral ranks first, followed by Adršpach-Teplice Rocks and Hluboká Castle.
- Was Amadeus filmed in Prague?
- Yes. Miloš Forman shot Amadeus on location in Prague in 1983, and the opera scenes were filmed in the Estates Theatre, where Mozart himself had conducted the premiere of Don Giovanni in 1787.
- Why is Prague used so often as a film location?
- Prague's historic centre survived the 20th century with little damage, so it can stand in for many European cities of earlier eras. The city also has Barrandov Studios, founded in the 1930s and one of the largest film studios in Europe.
- What was Karlštejn Castle built for?
- Emperor Charles IV founded Karlštejn in 1348 to house the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire and his collection of holy relics. Its Chapel of the Holy Cross is lined with gilded panels and semi-precious stones.
- How many film locations are on this list in the Czech Republic?
- The list covers 8 film locations.