Since 1950s Wrocław has been one of the three most important centres of film production in Poland. In the Wrocław Feature Film Studio, which operated from 1954 to 2011, more than 500 films were made, including films by Andrzej Wajda (Ashes and diamonds), Wojciech J. Has (The Saragossa Manuscript), Roman Polański (Knife in the Water), Andrzej Żuławski (The Devil, On the Silver Globe) and Agnieszka Holland (A Lonely Woman), placing Poland on the map of the world cinema. Most of the Polish directors who created the Polish cinema in the 20th century worked in the Wrocław Feature Film Studio and few of them – Stanisław Lenartowicz, Sylwester Chęciński, Waldemar Krzystek, Wojciech J. Has, Jan Jakub Kolski, Roman Załuski – remained connected with Wroclaw all their lives or for many years. As of 2011 in the studio’s premises operates the Audiovisual Technology Center where Polish and foreign films are once again made, e.g. Loving Vincent by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman or Speedway by Dorota Kędzierzawska.
Since the 1990s Wrocław and Lower Silesia – thanks to its unique locations and existing technical base – became a place for the completion of numerous foreign films including made entirely in the Wrocław Feature Film Studio Nightwatching by Peter Greenaway, Oscar-winning Karakter by Mike van Diem, films by Max Färberböck Aimee and Jaguar and Anonyma. A Woman in Berlin, fairytales Chronicles of Narnia. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Chronicles of Narnia. Prince Caspian by Andrew Adams.
The new impulse for the cinematic Wrocław was the creation of the regional film fund (Lower Silesia Film Fund) and the Wroclaw Film Commission. Since 2008, the regional fund financed more than 60 feature films, documentaries and animations made in Wroclaw and Lower Silesia, among these: Suicide Room by Jan Komasa and Hatred by Wojciech Smarzowski, Spoor by Agnieszka Holland (the winner of the Silver Bear prize during Berlinale 2017) and Polish-Czech co-productions awarded with Czech Lions In the Shadow by David Ondřicek and I, Olga Hepnarova by Tomáš Weinreb and Peter Kazda, as well as Summer Solstice by Michał Rogalski and documentary The Queen of Silence by Agnieszka Zwiefka. The establishment of Wroclaw Film Commission in 2013 led to further interest of filmmakers in making films in Lower Silesia. The most spectacular example was Bridge of Spies by Steven Spielberg, made in Wrocław in 2014.