About Eye Filmmuseum

This national museum for film, located on Amsterdam’s IJ harbour, manages more than 55.000 films from all genres. The collection represents an outstanding sample of film history, from classics and blockbusters to cult films. But Eye does not only focus on the past: it also closely follows the latest developments in film by organizing new acquisitions, programmes, and debates. The building is open every day for anyone who is interested in film and film culture. Our visitors are welcome in four cinemas, an exhibition space, a floor dedicated to educational activities, a shop, and a bar-restaurant.

Exhibition Saodat Ismailova – 18.000 Worlds, 2023, photo: Studio Hans Wilschut

Art Forum’s Critic’s Pick on Saodat Ismailova – 18,000 Worlds

By delving into her own personal archives as well as those of Eye Filmmuseum, Ismailova reveals to us a certain wealth. [There's also an] insight on how things fade into history.

Werner Herzog – The Ecstatic Truth, Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam; photo: Studio Hans Wilschut

Dazed on Werner Herzog – The Ecstatic Truth

What Eye […] draws out, […], is how Herzog’s search for ecstatic truth goes beyond what we see on the screen, bleeding into real life via trials and tribulations [...].

Antonioni Project (after Michelangelo Antonioni) (2009) © Jan Versweyveld

The Guardian on All About Film About Theatre – Ivo van Hove & Jan Versweyveld

A dizzying exhibition joins the dots between adaptations of arthouse movies [..]. Part of the exhibition’s achievement is how well it fits the space of the stunning Eye Filmmuseum.

Eye has won several international awards for its restoration work, including the Jean Mitry Award, for innovations in colour preservation of nitrate film, as well as the Film Preservation Honors, the Prix Henri Langlois, and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival Award in appreciation of the collection presentations which Eye Filmmuseum has held in San Francisco for the past few years.

Francis Alÿs – Children’s Games, exhibition, 2020 (photo Studio Hans Wilschut)

Eye Art & Film Prize

The Eye Art & Film Prize is awarded annually to support and promote an artist or filmmaker whose work unites art and film, and demonstrates quality of thought, imagination and artistic excellence.

The Brilliant Biograph wins FOCAL Award

The Brilliant Biograph has won the FOCAL Award 2021 in the category ‘Best Archive Restoration & Preservation Project’.

Oldest known footage of Mardi Gras festival in New Orleans discovered in Eye Filmmuseum’s collection

Eye Filmmuseum recently found the oldest known footage of the musical parade festival in its collection. The Library of Congress is adding the film to the National Film Registry.

Jean Desmet

File Desmet

The archive of Jean Desmet (1875 - 1956) is one of the main components of the Eye collection. He was a leading film-industry entrepreneur in the 1910s.

still from Mardi Gras Carnival (US 1898)

"Over 70% of silent cinema is gone. That’s a fact. Which means that every time a film classified as lost is rediscovered and restored it’s an event to be celebrated. Eye Film Museum in the Netherlands has been at the forefront of these efforts. Their latest rediscovery is a priceless record of the 1898 Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, a window onto a lost moment in time. The entire team at the Eye deserves the recognition and gratitude of every lover of cinema." - Martin Scorsese, director

A large room contains several workstations where analogue film can be viewed and digitised in the Eye Collection Centre

An employee loads in analogue film strips in the Eye Collection Centre

Eye wishes to be a world leader in the way film is kept and shown within a museum context. We present and preserve film as art, entertainment, cultural heritage, social documentation and as an art form that is constantly in flux. Eye pays attention to both the classics and established names and the unknown and experimental. Eye opens up new vistas and welcomes underexposed perspectives on film, (film) history and the art of the moving image.

On a red background a man sits on a director's chair, the back of the chair reads 'MR STURGES', he looks over his shoulder there at the viewer. Various characters from his films can be seen at the edges of the image.

Written and Directed by Preston Sturges

Eye was highly praised in Dutch media for getting Preston Sturges, ‘The King of Screwball Comedy’, back into the spotlight with its fall retrospective.

Black Light

Black Light highlights the representation of black identity in films, from 1920 to the present. A programme of talks, events and performances, featuring theatre, dance, and more.

Film Noir – The Dark Side of Hollywood

Rain-drenched streets, curls of cigarette smoke, and men with a dark past: this summer Eye presents an extended programme of classic film noir.

Hoyte van Hoytema in Eye Filmmuseum © Jurre Rompa

Hoyte van Hoytema

In July 2023, renowned D.O.P. Hoyte van Hoytema (Oppenheimer, Her) visited Eye in honour of the special 70mm screening of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.