5 films shot in Amsterdam

The bench before the house at Leidsegracht 4 suddenly disappeared following the success of The Fault in Our Stars. It’s the place where Hazel and Gus talked and kissed each other along Amsterdam’s canals. Nobody knew what happened to the bench, but the municipal government didn’t rule out that a fan had taken it. The municipality replaced the bench in the summer of 2014.

The Dutch director Dick Maas’ Amsterdamned (1988) is a cult classic about a psychopath in the Amsterdam Canals. The detective Eric Visser, played by Huub Stapel, is tasked with stopping him. The movie’s climax is a pursuit through the canals. Part of the chase, it must be said, was shot on the canals of the city of Utrecht.

Paul Verhoeven’s Turks Fruit (1983) is one of the most successful Dutch films of all time. The story, after Jan Wolker’s eponymous novel, is about a young sculptor called Erik who meets Olga while hitch-hiking. She’s the love of his life. They get married, but their luck doesn’t last forever. In an iconic scene, the couple cycles through the historic city on one bike.

Most films about Amsterdam use the picturesque canal belt as a backdrop, but not Sam de Jong’s debut Prins (Prince, 2015). Instead he focused on a poor area in Amsterdam North, telling the coming-of-age story of Ayoub (15) who does everything to win a girl’s attention, from buying fancy shoes to collaborating with a notorious criminal.

This second movie about Danny Ocean and his band of master thieves is partly set in Amsterdam. George Clooney, Brat Pitt and Matt Damon meet their client in the Dampkring coffee shop at Handboogstraat 29. Another scene is set in Amsterdam Central Station. Unfortunately, it was under renovation at the time. The scene was therefore shot in Haarlem’s Central Station.