Agnieszka Holland Biography: Movies, Age, Daughter, Net Worth, Height, Husband, Awards

Agnieszka Holland is a Polish filmmaker, director, and screenwriter known for her portrayals of war, moral ambiguity, and human resilience. She has earned three Academy Award nominations and international acclaim.

Beginning with contributions to the Polish School of cinema under mentors like Andrzej Wajda, she gained global recognition for films such as Europa Europa (1990), In Darkness (2011), and Mr. Jones (2019), and has directed episodes of prestige television including The Wire, House of Cards, and The Killing.

Profile

• Full Name: Agnieszka Holland
• Stage Name: Agnieszka Holland
• Born: 28, November 1948
• Age: 77 years old
• Birthplace: Warsaw, Poland
• Nationality: Polish, and French
• Occupation: Film and Television Director, Screenwriter
• Height: Unknown
• Parents: Henryk Holland and Irena Rybczyńska-Holland
• Siblings: Magdalena Łazarkiewicz
• Spouse: Laco Adamik (m. 1970s-?)
• Children: Katarzyna Adamik
• Relationship: Divorced
• Net Worth: $12 million

Early Life and Education

Agnieszka Holland was born on November 28, 1948, in Warsaw, Poland, to Henryk Holland, a Jewish-Polish journalist and communist activist, and Irena Rybczyńska-Holland, a Catholic journalist who fought in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.

She has one younger sister, sociologist and director Magdalena Łazarkiewicz. Holland graduated from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague in 1971, studying alongside Emir Kusturica and influenced by the Prague Spring, which shaped her political and artistic perspective.

She is of mixed Polish-Jewish heritage; her religious background is not publicly practiced, though she has spoken about the impact of her Jewish roots and the Holocaust on her work.

Career

Agnieszka Holland began her career in the early 1970s as a close collaborator of Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, serving as assistant director on several key films of the Cinema of Moral Anxiety movement and writing scripts that tackled social taboos under communist censorship.

Her directorial debut came with Provincial Actors (1978), which won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes and established her signature blend of psychological realism and political subtext.

Imprisoned briefly during the 1981 martial-law crackdown for her involvement with the Solidarity movement, she emigrated to France in 1981, beginning a decades-long career in exile that produced some of her most celebrated works.

Her international breakthrough arrived with Angry Harvest (1985), followed by the Oscar-nominated Europa Europa (1990), a harrowing true story of a Jewish boy passing as Aryan in Nazi Germany, and To Kill a Priest (1988) starring Christopher Lambert and Ed Harris.

Holland’s Holocaust trilogy concluded with the Academy Award-nominated In Darkness (2011), while later historical dramas such as Mr. Jones (2019) and Green Border (2023)—a raw depiction of the Belarus-EU migrant crisis—drew both praise and fierce political backlash in Poland.

In parallel, she became one of the most sought-after directors in American prestige television, helming landmark episodes of The Wire, Treme, House of Cards, and The Killing, proving her mastery across formats and cultures.

Holland continues to direct with undiminished intensity, releasing the Kafka-inspired Franz in 2024 and maintaining an active voice in European cultural debates.

Recipient of the Golden Globe for Europa Europa, multiple Polish Academy Awards, and honors at Berlin, Venice, and Cannes, she has mentored generations of filmmakers—including her daughter Katarzyna Adamik—and remains a moral compass for cinema that confronts history without compromise.

Social Media

Agnieszka Holland has no social media accounts.

Personal Life

Agnieszka Holland was married in the 1970s to Slovak director Laco Adamik, with whom she has one daughter, filmmaker Katarzyna Adamik. The couple later divorced and she has lived primarily in France and Poland in recent decades.

A lifelong advocate for human rights and artistic freedom, she became a French citizen in 2019 while retaining Polish nationality.

Filmography

• Provincial Actors (1978)
• Fever (1981)
• Angry Harvest (1985)
• To Kill a Priest (1988)
• Europa Europa (1990)
• Olivier, Olivier (1992)
• The Secret Garden (1993)
• Total Eclipse (1995)
• Washington Square (1997)
• The Third Miracle (1999)
• Julie Walking Home (2002)
• Copying Beethoven (2006)
• In Darkness (2011)
• Burning Bush (miniseries, 2013)
• Spoor (2017)
• Mr. Jones (2019)
• Charlatan (2020)
• Green Border (2023)
• Franz (2024)

Net Worth

Agnieszka Holland has an estimated net worth of $12 million, derived primarily from decades of international film and television directing fees, script sales, festival prizes, and residuals from acclaimed projects distributed worldwide.