Belgrade hosts many annual cultural events, including FEST (Belgrade Film Festival), BITEF (Belgrade Theatre Festival), BELEF (Belgrade Summer Festival), BEMUS (Belgrade Music Festival), Belgrade Book Fair, and the Belgrade Beer Festival. The Nobel prize winning author Ivo Andrić wrote his most famous work, The Bridge on the Drina, in Belgrade. Other prominent Belgrade authors include Branislav Nušić, Miloš Crnjanski, Borislav Pekić, Milorad Pavić and Meša Selimović.Most of Serbia's film industry is based in Belgrade; the 1995 Palme d'Or winning Underground, directed by Emir Kusturica, was produced in the city.

The city was one of the main centres of the Yugoslav New Wave in the 1980s: VIS Idoli, Ekatarina Velika and Šarlo Akrobata were all from Belgrade. Other notable Belgrade rock acts include Riblja Čorba, Bajaga i Instruktori and others. Today, it is the centre of the Serbian hip hop scene, with acts such as Beogradski Sindikat, Škabo, Marčelo, and most of the Bassivity Music stable hailing from or living in the city. There are numerous theatres, the most prominent of which are National Theatre, Theatre on Terazije, Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Zvezdara Theatre, and Atelier 212. The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is also based in Belgrade, as well as the National Library of Serbia. Belgrade's two opera houses are: National Theatre and Madlenianum Opera House.

There are many foreign cultural institutions in Belgrade, including Instituto Cervantes, Goethe-Institut and the Centre Culturel Français, which are all located on Prince Michael Street. Other cultural centres in Belgrade are American Corner, the Austrian Cultural Forum (Österreichischen Kulturforums), the British Council, and Russian Center for Science and Culture (Российский центр науки и культуры), the Confucius Institute, the Canadian Cultural Center, the Italian Cultural Institute, Italian Cultural Institute (Istituto Italiano di Cultura), the Hellenic House and the Culture Center of Islamic Republic of Iran.

Following the victory of Serbia's representative Marija Šerifović at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, Belgrade hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2008.

The most prominent museum in Belgrade is the National Museum, founded in 1844; it houses a collection of more than 400,000 exhibits, (over 5600 paintings and 8400 drawings and prints) including many foreign masterpieces and the famous Miroslavljevo Jevanđelje (Miroslav's Gospel). The Military Museum houses a wide range of more than 25,000 military exhibits dating as far back as to the Roman period, as well as parts of a F-117 stealth aircraft shot down by Yugoslav forces. The Museum of Aviation in Belgrade has more than 200 aircraft, of which about 50 are on display, and a few of which are the only surviving examples of their type, such as the Fiat G.50. This museum also displays parts of shot down US and NATO aircraft, such as the F117 and F16 The Ethnographic Museum, established in 1901, contains more than 150,000 items showcasing the rural and urban culture of the Balkans, particularly the countries of the former Yugoslavia. The Museum of Contemporary Art has a collection of around 8,540 works of art produced in Yugoslavia since 1900. The Nikola Tesla Museum, founded in 1952, preserves the personal items of Nikola Tesla, the inventor after whom the Tesla unit was named. It holds around 160,000 original documents and around 5,700 other items. The last of the major Belgrade museums is the Museum of Vuk and Dositej, which showcases the lives, work and legacy of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić and Dositej Obradović, the 19th century reformer of the Serbian literary language and the first Serbian Minister of Education, respectively. Belgrade also houses the Museum of African Art, founded in 1977, which has the large collection of art from West Africa.

With around 95,000 copies of national and international films, the Yugoslav Film Archive is the largest in the region and amongst the 10 largest archives in the world. The institution also operates the Museum of Yugoslav Film Archive, with movie theatre and exhibition hall. The archive's long-standing storage problems were finally solved in 2007, when a new modern depository was opened.

The Museum of the City of Belgrade will move into a new building in Nemanjina Street, downtown. The Museum has interesting exhibits such as the Belgrade Gospel (1503), full plate armour from the Battle of Kosovo, and various paintings and graphics. In late 2008 construction will start on a new Museum of Science and Technology.

List of all museums in Belgrade:

Art museums

• National Museum of Serbia (Trg republike 1a)
• Museum of African Art (Andre Nikolića 14)
• Museum of Applied Arts (Vuka Karadžica 18)
• Museum of Contemporary Art (Ušće bb)

Cultural and historical museums

• Historical Museum of Serbia (Nemanjina 24)
• Historical Museum of Genocide committed to the Serbian people (Trg Nikole Pašića 11)
• Jewish Historical Museum (Kralja Petra) I 71/1* Konak Kneginje Ljubice (Kneza Sime Markovića 3)
• Konak Kneza Miloša (Rakovički put 2)
• Military Museum (Kalemegdan)
• Museum of Belgrade Fortress (Kalemegdan)
• Museum of Ethnography (Studentski trg 13)
• Museum of Illegal Partisan Printing-houses
• Museum of Mladenovac (Mladenovac) (Vlajićeva 68)
• Museum of Pedagogy (Uzun Mirkova 14)
• Museum of Serbian Orthodox Church
• Museum of the "Banjica" Concentration Camp (Veljka Lukića Kurjaka 3)
• Museum of the City of Belgrade (Zmaj Jovina) 1
• Museum of Theatrical Arts (Gospodar Jevremova 19)
• Museum of Vuk and Dositej, (Gospodar Jevremova 21)
• Museum of Yugoslav Cinotheque (Kosovska 11)
• Zemun Home Museum (Glavna 9)

Memorial museums and commemorative collections

• Legacy of Milica Zorić and Rodoljub Čolaković (Rodoljuba Čolakovića 2)
• Legacy of Paja Jovanović and Collection of Petar Popović (Kralja Milana 21/IV)
• Manak's House (Gavrila Principa 5)
• Memorial Gallery of Petar Dobrović (Kralja Petra I 36/IV)
• Memorial Museum of Ivo Andrić (Andrićev venac 8/I)
• Memorial Museum of Jovan Cvijić (Jelene Ćetković 5)
• Memorial Museum of Nadežda and Rastko Petrović (Ljube Stojanovića 25)
• Museum of African Art (Andre Nikolića 14)
• Museum of Archibald Reiss (Bulevar vojvode Mišića 73)
• Museum of FK "Crvena Zvezda" (Ljutice Bogdana 1a)
• Museum of Physical Education (Blagoja Parovića 156)
• Museum of Toma Rosandić (Vasilija Gaceše 3)
• Tito Museum - House of Flowers, including his tomb

Technical and natural-history museums

• Museum of Automobiles (Majke Jevrosime 30)
• Museum of Aviation, near Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, has a collection consisting of 130 planes including the only remaining Fiat G.50.
• Museum of Natural History (Njegoševa 51; Mali Kalemegdan 1)
• Museum of Science and Technology (Ðure Jakšica 9) [10]
• Nikola Tesla Museum (Krunska 51) [11]
• PTT Museum (Palmoticeva 2)
• Railway Museum (Nemanjina 6)