Entertainment
Czechoslovakia Cinema
Top 272 films from Czechoslovakia (out of 272 in catalog), ranked by TMDB rating.
moviescinemaczechoslovakiafilm
272 of 272 rows
Title↕ | Year↕ | Director↕ | Genres↕ | TMDB Rating↕ | Votes↕ | Language↕ | Overview↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| School Is the Foundation of Life | 1,938 | Martin Frič | Comedy | 8.3 | 10 | Czech | Seventh form pupils at a grammar school in Přívlaky are preparing for a secondary school sports competition. Class creep Krhounek gives the class teacher Lejsal a copy of the seventh form’s magazine Roar. Most of the teachers insist on severe punishing the culprit. The author does not own up and consequently the whole class is punished by being banned from taking part in the schools competition. The most gifted pupil, Benetka, rather sharply criticises the school in a homework essay on a subject of his choice. The strict Czech language teacher is convinced Benetka is the author of the school magazine. Benetka denies the charge but his expulsion from school is proposed anyway on account the views he expounded in his essay. Eventually, Boukal, the author of the school magazine comes forward and admits to writing it. The pupils are allowed to take part in the contest and thanks to Benetka they win. In the meantime however the teachers vote to expell him. |
| Pictures of the Old World | 1,972 | Dušan Hanák | Documentary | 8.1 | 25 | Slovak | A raw and telling portrait of a people left behind by the modern world, inspired by the work of photographer Martin Martinček - whose pictures of the inhabitants of the Liptov region in central Slovakia, encompassed by the Tatra mountains, distilled entire lifetimes into luminous and intransient images. Dušan Hanák's continuation of these photographs takes the shape of a poetic visual essay, capturing more comprehensive vignettes of their isolated human experiences. |
| Once Upon a Time, There Was a King... | 1,955 | Bořivoj Zeman | Family, Comedy, Fantasy | 8 | 31 | Czech | A selfish self-centered widowed ruler, barely tolerated by his subjects and called appropriately enough, 'King Myself, First' asks his three daughters to name the measure of their love for him. When one of them says, "more than salt", he banishes her from the kingdom. Not understanding what she meant the King assumes love can only be measured by precious metals or one's own talent, the 'correct' answers from his other two daughters. The arrogance of the King leads him to gather all the salt in the kingdom and destroy it. Of course, this backfires as he slowly learns the universal value of the substance, and of course, the essence of his daughter's reply. With the help of the wise and magical old 'herb woman', the King also learns what it means to be a true and wise ruler. |
| Higher Principle | 1,960 | Jiří Krejčík | Drama | 8 | 19 | Czech | During the Nazi occupation of a Czech city civilians are being rounded up on the slightest of pretexts and shot. One day three high school boys who crack jokes about a recently deceased "hero of the Reich" are pulled out of school by the Gestapo. |
| The Unfortunate Bridegroom | 1,967 | Jiří Krejčík | Comedy | 8 | 10 | Czech | A comedy about two bumbling policemen investigating an alleged rape in a small Czech town. One of the alleged rapists is supposed to get married the day he's locked up. |
| How to Get Daddy to Change | 1,978 | Marie Poledňáková | Comedy, Family | 7.9 | 30 | Czech | Adventures of the "How to Rip Whale Tooth" (1977) heroes continue... The story takes place in the countryside, where little Vashko's dad takes him and his mother, and where another surprise awaits them: not only an excellent holiday in the setting of a rock town, but also the figure of a grandfather, understanding all the dangerous beliefs in the turbulent surface of the renewed relationship of the three closest people. Vasek's other wish comes true - his dad teaches him the secrets of rock climbing. This shared passion, however, causes further conflicts between the two parents - much to the chagrin of both Vasek and his grandfather. |
| Jára Cimrman Lying, Sleeping | 1,983 | Ladislav Smoljak | Comedy | 7.9 | 17 | Czech | Czechoslovak comedy film directed by Ladislav Smoljak, about the fictional national hero Jára Cimrman (universal genius, inventor, sportsman, criminalist, poet, writer and philosopher). |
| We'll Kick Up a Fuss Tomorrow, Darling... | 1,976 | Petr Schulhoff | Comedy | 7.9 | 13 | Czech | Mr. Novak tells a lie to his neighbor Mrs. Bartackova that her husband is unfaithful to her and that is how it all started. |
| The Cremator | 1,969 | Juraj Herz | Horror, Drama, Comedy | 7.8 | 258 | Czech | In 1930s Prague, a Czech cremator who firmly believes cremation relieves one from earthly suffering is drawn inexorably to Nazism. |
| Marketa Lazarová | 1,967 | František Vláčil | Drama, History | 7.8 | 153 | Czech | Mikolás and his brother Adam end up with a young German hostage of noble blood during a robbery. While their clan prepares for the wrath of the German king, Mikolás is sent to pressure his neighbor Lazar into a defense pact. Persuasion fails and he abducts Lazar's daughter Marketa on the eve of her initiation as a nun in an act of vengeance. |
| Food | 1,996 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation, Comedy | 7.8 | 125 | English | Examines the human relationship with food by showing breakfast, lunch, and dinner. |
| All My Good Countrymen | 1,969 | Vojtěch Jasný | Drama, Comedy | 7.8 | 16 | Czech | The lives of 7 friends in a small Czech town from 1945 to some time after 1958. |
| Marecek, Pass Me the Pen! | 1,976 | Oldřich Lipský | Comedy | 7.7 | 65 | Czech | This comedy is about one average family. The father works as master in the factory and his son is studying on high school. One day father must start to visit the evening school. It's the same school as his son visiting. The lives both students are connecting together. The son must teach the math and physics his own father. The father getting to know, that the life of the students is not simple as he supposed. |
| The Three Veterans | 1,984 | Oldřich Lipský | Family, Fantasy, Comedy | 7.7 | 39 | Czech | It is a story of three veterans released from the army. During one night spent camping in the country they one by one wake up and meet three elvish brothers. Each of the veterans is given a magic item - one gets magic harp that provides him with servants by wish, other one endless pouch of gold and the last one owns magic hat that can create all the staff excluding money and people. |
| Fantastic Planet | 1,973 | René Laloux | Animation, Science Fiction | 7.6 | 1,074 | French | On the planet Ygam, the Draags, extremely technologically and spiritually advanced blue humanoids, consider the tiny Oms, human beings descendants of Terra's inhabitants, as ignorant animals. Those who live in slavery are treated as simple pets and used to entertain Draag children; those who live hidden in the hostile wilderness of the planet are periodically hunted and ruthlessly slaughtered as if they were vermin. |
| Dimensions of Dialogue | 1,983 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation, Comedy | 7.6 | 164 | Czech | Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society. |
| Give the Devil His Due | 1,985 | Hynek Bočan | Family, Fantasy | 7.6 | 48 | Czech | Dorota, a bad woman married the miller, out of sheer greed drives him to death. She then took the mill away from his son Peter and threw him out of the hime. Lucifer, who is known to rule in hell, sends out the devil Janek. He is supposed to fetch Dorota because the measure of her earthly sins is overflowing. But the devil himself can not handle this evil woman and flees to the military. There he meets Peter. By joining forces, they finally succeed in transporting the wicked Dorota to hell. Since then hell is hell. But for Peter, who is suddenly in possession of a magic mantle, begins a nice time, because strangely, the prince shows great interest in him. |
| With You The World Is Fun | 1,983 | Marie Poledňáková | Comedy, Family | 7.6 | 35 | Czech | Three middle-aged go for a vacation into the mountains with their children. How will they cope with their youngsters every-day needs without their ... |
| A Night at Karlstein | 1,974 | Zdeněk Podskalský | Comedy, History, Music | 7.6 | 16 | Czech | No Woman is allowed into Karlstejn Castle! Yet the enamoured Daniele Kolářová and the equally enamoured Jana Brejchová manage to spend one night in disguise in the Castle despite the strict royal ban. |
| Lelíček in the Services of Sherlock Holmes | 1,932 | Karel Lamač | Comedy | 7.6 | 10 | Czech | The Portorican prime minister asks British detective Sherlock Holmes to find a twin for King Fernando XXIII, a weak and frightened man who fears anarchists and does not want to show himself in public. Holmes finds in the Czech newspapers a photo of the perfect double, František Lelíček, a daring bon vivant drowned in debt, so when Holmes offers him money, Lelíček decides to travel to Portorico and play the role. |
| Three Wishes for Cinderella | 1,973 | Václav Vorlíček | Fantasy, Family, Romance | 7.5 | 377 | Czech | Popelka, a resourceful and independent young girl, is a servant in her stepmother's house and confides in her closest friend the owl. When she comes across three magical acorns, she's granted a single wish for each one of them. |
| Darkness, Light, Darkness | 1,990 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation, Comedy | 7.5 | 155 | Czech | A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where. |
| Witchhammer | 1,970 | Otakar Vávra | Drama, Thriller | 7.5 | 68 | Czech | In the 1600s, an overzealous clergy hauls innocent women in front of tribunals, forces them to confess to imaginary witchery, and engages in brutal torture and persecution of their subjects. |
| Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet | 1,978 | Oldřich Lipský | Comedy, Crime, Science Fiction | 7.5 | 58 | Czech | When famous detective Nick Carter visits Prague, he becomes involved in strange case of a missing dog and even stranger carnivorous plant. He becom... |
| Happy End | 1,967 | Oldřich Lipský | Comedy | 7.5 | 54 | Czech | A dark comedy about a murder and its consequences presented in a backwards manner, where death is actually a rebirth. The film starts with an "execution" of the main protagonist and goes back to explore his previous actions and motivations. |
| The Good Soldier Švejk | 1,957 | Karel Steklý | Comedy, War | 7.5 | 40 | Czech | Good-natured and garrulous, Schweik becomes the Austrian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of World War I -- although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards and getting drunk, he uses all his cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the police, clergy, and officers who chivy him toward battle. |
| How to Pull Out a Whale's Tooth | 1,977 | Marie Poledňáková | Comedy, Family | 7.5 | 31 | Czech | Vasek, 8 years old boy is desperate to find a new "father" for his mother. |
| The Jester's Tale | 1,964 | Karel Zeman | Adventure, Comedy, History | 7.5 | 14 | Czech | An anti-war black comedy set during the Thirty Years' War. It follows ploughman Petr, recruiter Matěj and country girl Lenka who get caught up in both sides of the war and experience many adventures before they find happiness. The film combines live action with animation to suggest the artistic style of the engraver Matthäus Merian. |
| The Station Master | 1,941 | Jan Sviták | Comedy | 7.5 | 13 | Czech | Vlasta Burian, as a stowaway, disrupts the disciplined operation of a railway station. Mr. Ťopka gives the impression of a gentleman, somewhat Chap... |
| Beauty and the Beast | 1,979 | Juraj Herz | Fantasy, Horror, Romance | 7.4 | 87 | Czech | Julie, the youngest daughter of a bankrupt merchant, sacrifices her life in order to save her father. She goes to an enchanted castle in the woods and meets Netvor, a bird-like monster. As Netvor begins to fall in love with Julie, he must suppress his beastly urge to kill her. |
| The Fabulous Baron Munchausen | 1,962 | Karel Zeman | Animation, Fantasy, Adventure, Comedy | 7.4 | 86 | Czech | A 20th century man lands on the Moon and discovers that Baron Munchausen has beaten him to it, accompanied by Cyrano de Bergerac and the characters from Jules Verne's novels about the conquest of the satellite. |
| The Hand | 1,965 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, Horror | 7.4 | 76 | Czech | A happy little potter is approached by a huge hand which wants him to sculpt its statue. The potter refuses, wanting nothing more than to be left alone with his only friend, a potted plant. As the hand's request gives way to bribery, demands, and threats, the potter becomes more desperate to escape its clutch, leading to tragedy. |
| The Pied Piper | 1,986 | Jiří Barta | Animation, Fantasy, Drama | 7.4 | 74 | Czech | A darkly brilliant stop-motion adaptation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin about a plague of rats that punish townsfolk corrupt with greed. One of Czechoslovakia's most ambitious animation projects of the 1980s, notable for its unusual dark art direction, innovative animation techniques and use of a fictitious language. |
| The Terribly Sad Princess | 1,968 | Bořivoj Zeman | Music, Comedy, Family | 7.4 | 23 | Czech | Musical fairy tale tells the story of prince and princesses from neighbouring friendly countries who have to marry each other, as decided by their wise fathers with their advisors. However, the royal children want to decide their fate themselves. They meet in the royal garden, where princess pretends to be a maid and prince to be a herdsman. Prince under cover is imprisoned and helps princess with rebellion. She becomes sad all the time, because she does not want to marry anyone. Luckily, love finds way to their life . . . |
| Hotel Pacific | 1,975 | Janusz Majewski | Drama, History | 7.4 | 22 | Polish | Set in the early 1930s, a young man finds a job as a dishwasher in a hotel and quickly works his way up the ladder. Loosely based on the novel by Henryk Worcell. |
| Long Live the Republic | 1,965 | Karel Kachyňa | War, Drama | 7.4 | 16 | Czech | Oldrich is the runt of his village, beaten by his father, bullied by the other boys. But he has imagination on his side, and a wiry toughness they can’t defeat. The village is in turmoil, because the Nazi occupiers have just retreated and the Red Army is advancing. Oldrich dodges amid the mayhem and panic, taking his share of blows but always managing to stay one step ahead. Beautifully shot and darkly ironic, Karel Kachyna’s forgotten masterpiece jumbles reality, memory and fantasy to capture the intensity and confusion of childhood in a war zone. |
| Assassination | 1,965 | Jiří Sequens | War, Drama, History | 7.4 | 16 | Czech | In autumn 1941, Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich’s brutal rule in occupied Bohemia and Moravia fuels Czech resistance. In spring 1942, the government-in-exile sends trained paratroopers led by Lt. Král on a mission to assassinate him. Masters Strnad and Vyskočil ambush Heydrich’s open Mercedes in Prague’s Libeň district, mortally wounding him despite a jammed submachine gun. Their success triggers harsh Nazi reprisals, mass executions, and an intense manhunt for the operatives. |
| Duchacek Will Fix It | 1,938 | Karel Lamač | Comedy | 7.4 | 12 | Czech | Mr. Ducháček runs the law firm of JUDr. Faukner in a peculiar but completely devoted manner, which manages the financial affairs of the Rispaldic family. The family members treat their lawyer Faukner with condescension, except for their daughter Julia, who secretly loves him. However, no one except Ducháček knows that the squandering family no longer has any money and that JUDr. Faukner is subsidizing it, because he is also secretly in love with Julia. |
| Daisies | 1,966 | Věra Chytilová | Comedy, Drama | 7.3 | 416 | Czech | Two teenage girls embark on a series of destructive pranks in which they consume and destroy the world around them. |
| My Sweet Little Village | 1,985 | Jiří Menzel | Comedy | 7.3 | 76 | Czech | The movie's main storyline follows the life of Otík, a young man, in a tight-knit village community. The sweet-tempered Otík works as an assistant truck driver with Mr. Pávek, his older colleague and practical-minded neighbor. Pávek's family takes care of Otík, whose parents are dead. However, the two coworkers become at odds over Otík's inability to perform even the simplest tasks. Pávek demands that Otík be transferred to assist another driver, who happens to be a choleric and suspicious man named Turek (Turk in Czech). Rather than work with Turek, Otík decides to accept an offer of employment in Prague, but finds he does not fit in to the city life. After discovering that the transfer of Otík to Prague was a trick by a crooked politician to get a deal on Otík's large inherited house, Pávek agrees to give Otík a second chance and retrieves him from the city to resume their work together. |
| The Flat | 1,968 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation, Horror | 7.3 | 45 | Czech | A man is trapped in a sinister flat, where nothing seems to obey the laws of nature. |
| The Sorcerer's Apprentice | 1,978 | Karel Zeman | Animation, Fantasy | 7.3 | 44 | Czech | Krabat, a beggar boy, is lured to become an apprentice to an evil, one-eyed sorcerer. With a number of other boys, he works at the sorcerer's mill while learning black magic. Every Christmas one of the boys has to face the master in a magical duel, where the boy never stands a chance because the master is the only person who is allowed to use a secret spell: The Koraktor. |
| Forbidden Dreams | 1,987 | Karel Kachyňa | Comedy, Drama | 7.3 | 16 | Czech | Leo Popper is a happy family man living in rural Bohemia in the years preceding the Nazi invasion. Out of economic necessity he moves with his family to the big city and becomes an enterprising vacuum cleaner salesman. There he embarks on a series of adulterous adventures, has encounters with boxing pros and famous portrait artists, and schemes to purchase the perfect pond to fulfill his passion for fishing. When the Nazis gain control, the comedy turns sour - he loses his lake, his job, and finally, his family. |
| Journey Into the Depth of the Student's Soul | 1,939 | Martin Frič | Comedy | 7.3 | 13 | Czech | Small stories from a grammar school.Děj je poskládán z celé řady epizod, které během jednoho školního roku prožívají septimáni. Jejich pojítkem je příběh profesora přírodopisu Matulky, starého mládence a věčného suplenta, který si z přehnané svědomitosti ani v pokročilém věku netroufá složit tu poslední státnici. Stále se mu totiž zdá, že ještě něco nezná, a tak by snad bez diplomu odešel i do penze. Naštěstí jsou tu jeho studenti, kteří sice dávají dobráckému učiteli pěkně zabrat, ale po nezodpovědné klukovině s bouchacími kuličkami, kdy se Matulkovi udělá špatně, se kluci vzpamatují a s pomocí mladého profesora, někdejšího Matulkova žáka, připraví šlechetnou lest. Pod záminkou nákupu k doplnění školní entymologické sbírky je vylákán ke zkoušce u laskavého profesora Vondráka. (oficiální text distributora) |
| If a Thousand Clarinets | 1,965 | Ján Roháč | Comedy, Music, Fantasy | 7.3 | 12 | Czech | A military base. An awkward soldier. A statue of Bach. And suddenly all guns in the area change into music instruments. Great mystery is immediately found by TV station. And soon the military base becomes a stage for huge TV show. |
| Pacho, the Brigand of Hybe | 1,976 | Martin Ťapák | Comedy | 7.3 | 10 | Slovak | A funny outlaw tale inspired by traditional folk humour. Pacho is no ordinary outlaw. He detests injustice and feudal oppression and he copes with each troublesome situation with the help of his cleverness and wit. |
| If I Had a Gun | 1,971 | Štefan Uher | Drama, Comedy | 7.3 | 10 | Slovak | Vlado, an intelligent boy living in a small village, has fantasies that take him away from his humdrum life. But as the Nazi occupation begins to encroach on the townsfolk his fantasies and reality begin to merge. |
| Closely Watched Trains | 1,966 | Jiří Menzel | Comedy, Drama, War | 7.2 | 260 | Czech | At a village railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, a bumbling dispatcher’s apprentice longs to liberate himself from his virginity. Oblivious to the war and the resistance that surrounds him, this young man embarks on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery, encountering a universe of frustration, eroticism, and adventure within his sleepy backwater depot. |
| Journey to the Beginning of Time | 1,955 | Karel Zeman | Adventure, Fantasy, Family | 7.2 | 72 | Czech | Four schoolboys go on an awe-inspiring expedition back through time, where they behold landscapes and creatures that have long since vanished from the earth. |
| The Ear | 1,970 | Karel Kachyňa | Thriller, Drama, Mystery | 7.2 | 67 | Czech | Upon returning home from an official party, a Czech government official and his wife discover it bugged and surveilled by mysterious figures, driving them to paranoia and intensifying their discontents with one another. |
| The Elementary School | 1,991 | Jan Svěrák | Comedy, Drama | 7.2 | 58 | Czech | The time is 1945-46. 10 year old Eda and his friend Tonda live in a small village outside Prague. In school, their class is so wild and indisciplined that their teacher quits and is replaced by the militant Igor Hnidzo. He is very strict – but also very fair. His weakness though, is his interest in young women. |
| Morgiana | 1,972 | Juraj Herz | Mystery, Horror, Drama | 7.2 | 58 | Czech | Jealous of her vapidly "good" sister's popularity, poisonous Viktoria doses pretty Klara's tea with a slow-acting fatal substance. As the latter grows hysterically weak, the former finds success increasingly compromised by guilt, blackmail, and the pesky need to kill others lest she be exposed. |
| The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia | 1,991 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 7.2 | 40 | Czech | A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to 1989 (the Velvet Revolution). |
| Secluded, Near Woods | 1,976 | Jiří Menzel | Comedy | 7.2 | 39 | Czech | The Lavicka's, a Czech family from the city, rents a house in the country with the option to buy. However, old Mr Komarek seems reluctant to sell the house as they agreed. |
| Carriage to Vienna | 1,966 | Karel Kachyňa | War, Drama, Thriller | 7.2 | 35 | Czech | A WW2 story of a young Austrian soldier running from the Russian army and a woman whom he forces to come along in order to save his wounded mate. |
| The Sun in a Net | 1,963 | Štefan Uher | Drama | 7.2 | 35 | Slovak | Oldrich "Fajolo" Fajták (Marián Bielik), a student who directs quasi-existentialist verbal abuse at his girlfriend Bela Blazejová (Jana Beláková), takes off to a formally volunteer summer work camp at a farm where he meets her grandfather. |
| Joachim, Put It in the Machine | 1,974 | Oldřich Lipský | Comedy | 7.2 | 34 | Czech | A sincere provincial young man, Frantisek Koudelka leaves to work in Prague. For the trip he buys a computer made horoscope with biorhythms charts, marked according to his date of birth, there are trappy, precarious, unsuccessful and even critical days and few successful days. The clumsy luckless person Frantisek has finally a guidance for his life. |
| Sun, Hay and a Couple of Slaps | 1,989 | Zdeněk Troška | Comedy | 7.2 | 30 | Czech | For a second time this film leads us to the village in South Bohemia. We meet again Konopnik family and Skopek family. Venca Konopnik is marrying Blazena Skopek but there is another woman Milada who is very jealous and she is spreading gossips about Venca Konopnik. Those gossips are so powerful that they lead to big fights between Konopnik and Skopek families. You will also see what a progress on milk-yielding-cows-project has been made. |
| The Vanished World of Gloves | 1,982 | Jiří Barta | Animation | 7.2 | 20 | Czech | Using an array of gloves in different styles and from different historical periods, the film is a short history of the cinema - from silent movies via pastiches of Buñuel and Fellini and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to a futurist junkyard where tin cans become animated police cars in a city of urban decay. |
| Dragon's Return | 1,968 | Eduard Grečner | Drama | 7.2 | 20 | Slovak | This is a ballad about love, hate, and a search for a way out of loneliness. It is a dramatic story about the strange potter, Martin Leaps, nicknamed Dragon, who is suspected by the villagers as the cause of natural disasters. He lost his wife, his home, and his freedom due to false accusations. After years he returns to his native village. Putting his own life to risk, he saves a herd of cows from a forest fire in the hills. But not even this heroic deed helps him to win back the friendship of the locals. |
| The Shop on Main Street | 1,965 | Ján Kadár | Drama, War | 7.1 | 222 | Slovak | In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before. |
| The Fabulous World of Jules Verne | 1,958 | Karel Zeman | Adventure, Science Fiction | 7.1 | 88 | Czech | As the world progresses into the industrial age, a professor studying the "nature of pure matter" is spirited away by a would-be dictator and connived into building a super-bomb, as a young reporter and a girl rescued from the sea attempt to warn him of their mutual kidnapper's intentions to dominate the world with a new and more-deadly-yet weapon. |
| Diamonds of the Night | 1,964 | Jan Němec | Drama, War | 7.1 | 74 | Czech | Two Jewish boys escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Beyond themes of war and anti-Nazism, the film concerns itself with man's struggle to preserve human dignity. |
| Lemonade Joe | 1,964 | Oldřich Lipský | Comedy, Western | 7.1 | 67 | Czech | A satire of the Great American Way, with Lemonade Joe a "clean living" gunfighter who drinks only Kola-Loca Lemonade and convinces everyone else in town (with his gun skills) that all "real men" drink ONLY lemonade! |
| Cutting It Short | 1,981 | Jiří Menzel | Comedy | 7.1 | 47 | Czech | Francin, manager of a small-town brewery, has a charming wife whose abundant blonde locks are an adornment to the town. Maryska looks ethereal but loves meat and beer, while Francin is an ascetic. The strict members of the brewery board of directors come to audit the accounts, but are diverted from concentrating on Francin's detailed reports by Maryska, who has organized a pig-killing feast and is ably assisting the butcher. When she invites the old curmudgeons on the board to enjoy the fresh pork, they are too happy to agree. Francin doesn't know whether he is going to get a permanent contract. To make things worse his brother Pepin - eccentric, noisy and garrulous - turns up on an indefinite visit. |
| Birds, Orphans and Fools | 1,969 | Juraj Jakubisko | Drama, Fantasy, Comedy | 7.1 | 35 | Slovak | In the aftermath of war, two men and a woman begin acting more like children than adults, leading to tragedy. |
| The Proud Princess | 1,952 | Bořivoj Zeman | Family, Comedy | 7.1 | 31 | Czech | It's very human and nice story about lofty princess (her father is amiable but incapable - unforgettable performance of S. Neumann) and good, nice, kind and well-principled young king (prince) who tries to make tender her calm heart to get married with her. After being refused (she's very capricious), he conclude to make her better. He start to work as a gardener at her castle (in secret) and successively bring she to her senses...The story continues when already reformed princess and the young king (she learn about his real identity later) have to take refuge from troops, that princess father (old king) has sent (of course he took a bad and mean counsellors advice). They have to take shelter by several ordinary and poor families, which are always very friendly and give them a help... Of course the tale has happy end. |
| The Garden | 1,968 | Jan Švankmajer | Drama, Comedy | 7.1 | 24 | Czech | Frank visits his friend Josef, who introduces him to his pedigree rabbits and his wife Mary. Frank is more interested in the slightly unsettling fact that Josef and Mary's garden fence is entirely made up of living people holding hands. |
| Black Barons | 1,992 | Zdenek Sirový | Comedy | 7.1 | 22 | Czech | Life of Czechoslovak soldiers in a military unit for the so called "politically unreliable" - the Technical auxiliary battalions, aka "the black barons". Although it might seem like a political satire and it's mostly funny, it shows the reality and the absurdity of military service under the communist regime. Based on a novel by Miloslav Svandrlik. |
| A Midsummer's Night Dream | 1,959 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, Fantasy, Comedy | 7.1 | 18 | Czech | The first puppet film shot in CinemaScope. It is based on the famous poetic comedy by William Shakespeare. Three worlds meet in this story: the noble world of three Athens couples, a common popular world of tradesmen amateur theatre and a fairy-tale happiness of magic creatures as elves and nymphs. The film is considered the most remarkable Jiří Trnka's work and a milestone in the history of the world animation. |
| Lucy, the Menace of Street | 1,984 | Jindřich Polák | Comedy, Family, Fantasy | 7.1 | 16 | Czech | A first part of a funny adventures of six years old Lucie and her two magic dolls. |
| Dar | 1,967 | Eugen Šinko | N/A | 7.1 | 16 | Slovak | Promotion of free blood donation. |
| Kristian | 1,939 | Martin Frič | Comedy, Romance | 7.1 | 14 | Czech | Alois Novák (Oldrich Nový), a minor clerk in a travel agency and the husband of a dowdy housewife Marenka (Natasa Gollová), lives a run-of-the-mill, dull life. In his soul, however, there resides an inextinguishable desire for adventure. And so once a month he poses as a playboy. As the mysterious and wealthy Mr. Kristian he goes to the exclusive Orient Bar where he does not skimp on generous tips and where he platonic-ally seduces beautiful and elegant women. In the salon he speaks of love and the magnificence of exotic lands, which he has supposedly come to know on his wanderings abroad. In reality he has read all of this in the travel agency's brochures. |
| Valerie and Her Week of Wonders | 1,970 | Jaromil Jireš | Fantasy, Adventure, Drama | 7 | 291 | Czech | Valerie, a Czechoslovakian teenager living with her grandmother, is blossoming into womanhood, but that transformation proves secondary to the effects she experiences when she puts on a pair of magic earrings. Now seeing the world around her in a different light, Valerie must endure her sexual awakening while attempting to discern reality from fantasy as she encounters lecherous priest Gracian, a vampire-like stranger and otherworldly carnival folk. |
| The Firemen's Ball | 1,967 | Miloš Forman | Comedy | 7 | 243 | Czech | The firemen of a provincial Czechoslovakian town throw a ball in honor of the old chief's retirement. There will be music and dancing, a beauty pageant and a raffle. The whole town will be in attendance. However, the proceedings are dogged by difficulty at every step. Workplace injuries, stolen prizes, a shortage of pretty girls... and fire. |
| Loves of a Blonde | 1,965 | Miloš Forman | Comedy, Drama, Romance | 7 | 186 | Czech | Andula, an innocent Czech girl from a factory town, is desperately in search of love. She believes she's found it when she beds Milda, a charming young musician visiting from Prague. Milda, however, is only looking for a casual encounter, and leaves town assuming he'll never see Andula again. But when Andula doesn't hear from him, she packs up and heads to Prague, to the surprise of Milda and his parents. |
| The Valley of the Bees | 1,968 | František Vláčil | Drama, History | 7 | 48 | Czech | Cast out by his father, young Ondrej joins the Order of the Teutonic Knights, where he is raised by strict monk Armin. After years of hardship, Ondrej escapes from the Order when he is wrongly punished, and sets out for his former home. Arriving to discover his father to be dead, Ondrej now not only assumes control of his father's properties, but seeks to marry his former stepmother. |
| Run, Waiter, Run! | 1,981 | Ladislav Smoljak | Comedy | 7 | 44 | Czech | A comedy concerning a down on his luck bookshop owner with a penchant for women who decides to make some money by pretending to be a waiter and collecting cash from unsuspecting diners. |
| Who Wants to Kill Jessie? | 1,966 | Václav Vorlíček | Comedy, Science Fiction | 7 | 41 | Czech | In this zany Czechoslovakian comedy, a scientist invents a machine that projects a sleeping person's dream on a screen; disaster soon follows when the machine malfunctions and the cartoon-like dream characters become very real! |
| The White Dove | 1,960 | František Vláčil | Drama | 7 | 29 | Czech | A poetic film about a dove getting lost on its way to Prague getting shot down by a paralyzed boy. An artist who finds the dove becomes friends with the boy. Together they take care of it bringing it back to recovery. |
| The Ossuary | 1,970 | Jan Švankmajer | Documentary | 7 | 28 | Czech | A non-narrative voyage round Sedlec Ossuary, which has been constructed from over 50,000 human skeletons (victims of the Black Death). |
| Long Live Ghosts! | 1,977 | Oldřich Lipský | Family, Comedy, Music, Fantasy | 7 | 21 | Czech | A trespassing gang of boys encounter a ghost in the ruins of a castle. When they rescue the ghost who is caught in a trapset, they become allies in a fight to prevent ruins from being turned into mushroom farm by the city authorities. |
| The Last Theft | 1,987 | Jiří Barta | Crime | 7 | 18 | Czech | A man breaks into a large, seemingly abandoned old house to plunder the gold received. But the house is really abandoned? |
| Panelstory or Birth of a Community | 1,981 | Věra Chytilová | Comedy, Drama | 7 | 11 | Czech | An old man is wandering round a badly signposted and as yet mostly under construction Prague housing estate looking for the high rise block into which he is supposed to be moving with his daughter's family. The old granddad from the countryside likes chatting, nothing escapes his eyes and he wants to give everyone a helping hand. |
| The Tale of John and Mary | 1,980 | Karel Zeman | Animation, Fantasy, Romance | 7 | 10 | Czech | Young knight John travels the world in search of fame and fortune, but also to help others and prove himself. However, things go dire fast and he becomes burdened with life's hardships. But then he meets a pretty water nymph, Mary. |
| When the Cat Comes | 1,963 | Vojtěch Jasný | Comedy, Fantasy | 6.9 | 71 | Czech | While old Oliva tells a group of children about his life as a sailor and how he met Diana and her cat with sunglasses, a strange circus arrives in town. |
| The Emperor and the Golem | 1,952 | Martin Frič | Comedy, Fantasy | 6.9 | 46 | Czech | The Emperor's mismanagement of his country is provoking some in his court to plot to overthrow him. He feels successful, at least, when he discovers the legendary Golem, which he believes can protect him and even cure his imaginary illnesses but, when he disappears while on a bender, his kindly baker, who looks just like him, is mistaken for him, and begins to put things in order. However, the conspirators, not to be outdone, determine to bring the Golem back to life to do their bidding. |
| The Party and the Guests | 1,966 | Jan Němec | Drama, Comedy | 6.9 | 38 | Czech | A group of the bourgeois head for a prominent figure's birthday party. As they venture through the woods and have a picnic, they're suddenly surrounded by some suspicious strangers. |
| Down to the Cellar | 1,983 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation, Horror, Mystery | 6.9 | 32 | Slovak | A little girl goes down to the basement cellar to fetch some potatoes, and finds all her hidden fears about the cellar depicted in animated form. |
| The Devil's Trap | 1,962 | František Vláčil | History, Drama, Mystery | 6.9 | 29 | Czech | A small town is one day visited by a priest who is there on a secret mission. He is a member of the Inquisition sent to investigate the activities of a local miller. The miller and his son are the descendants of an old family whose ancestral home burned down a century ago, but was rebuilt from scratch. The miller inherited much of his knowledge about the land, water, and a building's stability from generations of family experience. His reputation for finding water and predicting when a structure might collapse have come to the attention of the Inquisition -surely he must be in league with the Devil. |
| Jacob the Liar | 1,974 | Frank Beyer | History, Drama, Comedy | 6.9 | 28 | German | A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he tells him what he heard and announces that he is in possession of a radio - in the ghetto a crime punishable by death. It doesn't take long for word of Jakob's secret to spread - suddenly, there is new hope and something to live for - and so Jakob finds himself in the uncomforting position of having to come up with more and more stories. |
| The Stolen Airship | 1,967 | Karel Zeman | Adventure, Science Fiction, Animation | 6.9 | 26 | Czech | Five young people take off in a lighter-than-air machine at the Prague Centennial Exhibition. A live-action/animated film based loosely on Jules Verne's novels Two Years' Vacation and The Mysterious Island. The film in Art Nouveau style consists of live-action scenes, generally shot in black and white, as well as hand-drawn, stop-motion, and cutout animation. Various live-action and animated elements are often composited into the same scene. |
| I Dutifully Report | 1,958 | Karel Steklý | Comedy, War | 6.9 | 21 | Czech | A comedy based on the novel of Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Svejk happens during the World War I. I Dutifully Report: In the introduction to the second part of the film adaptation of Hašek's novel The Good Soldier Švějk presents his main character Josef Švejk. With the distinctive traditional Czech cartoon character of a soldier Svejk, this time you meet on the way to the front and eventually right in the firing line. You can look at his famous train events, and also probably the most famous episode of the novel, Švejk's Budějovice anabasis. Don't miss the scene with the secretly bought cognac, the episode with Svejk as a fake Russian prisoner of war, including the court scene, and the scene in which lieutenant Dub is caught in a brothel. Despite the criticism, Steklý's adaptation is undoubtedly the most famous and memorable at present. |
| Ball Lightning | 1,979 | Ladislav Smoljak | Comedy | 6.9 | 19 | Czech | A comedy about exchange of 12 apartments , which, its organizer, lawyer Radosta, rightly called Action Ball Lightning. To prepare, organize and execute the exchange of twelve apartments is a work worthy champions. Radosta, who was excellently played by Rudolf Hrušínský, solved all sudden difficulties and complications on the fly and with grace. To be sure that the on the D-day everything goes well he prepares a little rehearsal, which reveals many minor issues caused for example by wedding ordered to inappropriate term or hesitation of some participants. Last but not least a night exercise announced by drunk psychologist Knotků, creates a lot of confusion that nearly sabotaged the whole operation. |
| Don Juan | 1,969 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.9 | 15 | Czech | The age-old story of Don Juan, played by giant puppets. |
| Hogo Fogo Homolka | 1,971 | Jaroslav Papoušek | Comedy | 6.9 | 11 | Czech | The Homolka family celebrates a great occasion: they were finally able to buy a car. They immediately begin to drive for small trips to Hradcany, to the airport, and plan further trips. Their euphoria is spoiled by a letter from their great-grandmother. Their great-grandfather is dying and the family is expected to come along to say goodbye. The annoyed Homolkas therefore set off to the South Bohemian village where the grandparents live. |
| The Cry | 1,964 | Jaromil Jireš | Drama | 6.9 | 11 | Czech | While a woman is in the hospital preparing to deliver her child, her husband has all day to reflect upon his wife and their relationship. As he tends to his job as a television repairman, Slavek fondly remembers how he first met Ivana and the days they spent getting to know one another. Slavek also grows increasingly aware of the environment that surrounds him and questions the society his new child will be entering. |
| Ikarie XB 1 | 1,963 | Jindřich Polák | Science Fiction | 6.8 | 105 | Czech | The year is 2163. Starship Ikaria XB 1 embarks on a mission deep into space in search of alien life. During their perilous journey the crew confront the effects of a malignant dark star, the destructive legacy of the 20th century and, ultimately, the limits of their own sanity. |
| Larks on a String | 1,969 | Jiří Menzel | Drama, Romance, Comedy | 6.8 | 44 | Czech | In post-WWII Communist Czechoslovakia, several characters considered bourgeois are sentenced to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation. Among them is a young man who pines for a female convict. |
| Inspiration | 1,949 | Karel Zeman | Animation, Fantasy | 6.8 | 44 | Czech | A glass blower imagines that his creations come to life. A story of love contained within a single drop of rain. A voyage into ethereal beauty. |
| Virile Games | 1,988 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation, Comedy, Horror | 6.8 | 41 | Czech | A man sits down to watch a football match, which seems to consist of the players being violently mutilated in various inventive ways. The players then leave the football pitch and invade the spectator's flat. |
| The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope | 1,983 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation, Horror, Mystery | 6.8 | 33 | Czech | Animated short film based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" and Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's "A Torture by Hope". |
| Sun, Hay, Berries | 1,984 | Zdeněk Troška | Comedy | 6.8 | 31 | Czech | A Czech agricultural student, Šimon Plánička, arrives at the small South Bohemian town of Hoštice, and joins the local JZD (agricultural co-op) with the intention of trying out his experiment regarding the "Milk yield of cows in regards to a cultured environment". He runs into difficulty with the directorship of the JZD, but he finds them eager to help once they hear he's the son of the local agricultural commissioner, as his last name is also Plánička. Blažena Škopková is given the task of finding out how things are looking. However everything is complicated by the jealousy of Blažena's boyfriend Venca. |
| You Are a Widow, Sir | 1,971 | Václav Vorlíček | Science Fiction, Comedy | 6.8 | 26 | Czech | After a soldier cuts off the arm of king's cousin, king decides to deactivate the army. Of course, generals don't like it at all and they try to kill the king. The assassin should be artificial body in the shape of actress Evelina Keleti and with brain of psychotic serial killer Fany Stubová. They also manage to kill king's astrologer Stuart Hampl, who warns the king. Accidentally, Hampl's brain is implanted into assassin's body, actress Keleti is killed and chaos begins. |
| A Case for a Rookie Hangman | 1,970 | Pavel Juráček | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy | 6.8 | 24 | Czech | Lemuel Gulliver has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession. |
| Adelheid | 1,970 | František Vláčil | Drama, Romance | 6.8 | 21 | Czech | In the aftermath of World War II, a soldier takes charge of a manor formerly owned by a German family and falls in love with the daughter, now a maid. Their relationship forces him to confront the tension between his love and his conscience. |
| Distant Journey | 1,949 | Alfréd Radok | Drama | 6.8 | 18 | Czech | Prague, during World War II. Hana Kaufmann, a Jewish ophthalmologist, marries Dr. Antonín Bureš, a Christian man. When her family is sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, their romance turns into a struggle for survival. |
| Six Bears and a Clown | 1,972 | Oldřich Lipský | Family, Comedy | 6.8 | 16 | Czech | The owner of a circus decides to swap his trained bears for trained pigs, and fires clown Cibulka. The clown gets a job at a local school, bears escape and seek him out and a school inspector comes into town. |
| The Phantom of Morrisville | 1,966 | Bořivoj Zeman | Comedy, Mystery | 6.8 | 10 | Czech | Inspector Brumpby (Jaroslav Marvan) and the young crime reporter Allan Pinkerton (Vít Olmer) attend wedding of Sir Hannibal Morris (Oldrich Nový) with beautiful Clarence (Kveta Fialová). After the ceremony, Clarence's ex-husband, criminal Manuel Diaz (Waldemar Matuska), who was believed dead, shows up in her room. He wants to get his hands on Clarence and, most importantly, on the money she would inherit in the eventuality of her new husband's death. Diaz makes attempts on Hannibal's life. He knows his way about an underground labyrinth in the château and the traps he sets up for Hannibal seem to work, since Hannibal is apparently found dead after an explosion in the labyrinth, after which his body vanishes. The inspector tries to solve the countless mysteries. In this, he is joined by Allan, always ahead of the man of the law in his estimation and judgment of the situation. |
| Meat Love | 1,989 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation, Comedy, Romance | 6.7 | 81 | Czech | Two pieces of meat fall in love. |
| Black Peter | 1,964 | Miloš Forman | Drama, Comedy | 6.7 | 69 | Czech | A few days in the life of a Czechoslovak teenager when he starts work. |
| The Little Mermaid | 1,976 | Karel Kachyňa | Fantasy, Romance | 6.7 | 46 | Czech | The little mermaid rescues a prince from drowning and falls in love with him. To be with him, she makes a deal with the evil sorceress: her beautiful voice against a life on land. It seems to work at first, the prince is enchanted with her lovely appearance. But the memory of a foreign princess still haunts him: The one who found him on the beach where the mermaid had left him, and whom he (of course) believes to be his saviour. To resolve this mistake is too much for the mute little mermaid, and not even her father, king of all seas, can help her in the impending catastrophe. |
| The Girl on the Broomstick | 1,972 | Václav Vorlíček | Comedy, Family, Fantasy | 6.7 | 46 | Czech | A teenage witch, frozen in time as a punishment for 300 years, finds herself in a modern world. |
| The Princess with the Golden Star | 1,959 | Martin Frič | Family, Fantasy | 6.7 | 31 | Czech | A Czech fairy tale about a princess named Lada who runs away from home in a mouse fur disguise in order to escape an unwanted and forced marriage. |
| The Last Trick | 1,964 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.7 | 29 | Czech | Two magicians, Mr. Schwarzwald and Mr. Edgar, try to outdo each other in performing elaborate magic tricks, leading to a violent ending. |
| Wolf's Hole | 1,987 | Věra Chytilová | Drama, Horror, Science Fiction | 6.7 | 26 | Czech | Eleven disparate adolescents, gathered for a skiing camp at an isolated winter resort, find themselves preyed upon and set against one another by their three mysterious instructors. |
| Joseph Kilian | 1,964 | Pavel Juráček | Drama | 6.7 | 20 | Czech | The story is about Harold, an isolated figure in an overwhelming world of totalitarian bureaucracy. Harold tries to find the elusive Joseph Kilian, an old acquaintance, in Prague. When Harold stumbles across a state-run cat-lending store, he impulsively rents a feline for the day. Later, he attempts to return the cat and finds that the store no longer exists. Now with a furry companion, Harold continues his search for Kilian. Written and directed by Pavel Juracek, this 40 minute film effectively aims its allegorical shots at personality cults and the absurdities of a totalitarian regime. |
| The Creation of the World | 1,958 | Eduard Hofman | Animation, Comedy, Family | 6.7 | 20 | Czech | La Création du Monde is among the first animated feature films made in France. But to be exact, the film was animated in Czechoslovakia and directed by Eduard Hofman. It is adapted from a series of five books by Jean Effel, a French caricaturist and illustrator. The visual style is adapted from his drawings. The film is a comedy about the creation of the universe in six days, with the devil messing around and contributing in his own way. |
| Darbujan and Pandrhola | 1,960 | Martin Frič | Family, Fantasy | 6.7 | 19 | Czech | A poor miner, Kuba Dařbuján, cares for his wife Markýtka and eleven children. When a newborn arrives, he seeks a godfather and, finding only Death fair to all, accepts a pact: as a doctor whom Death accompanies at the foot of a patient’s bed, he can heal; but if Death stands at the head, no cure is possible. Kuba eventually heals even a miserly brewer, violating the pact and imprisoning Death, leading to a world where no one can die and unforeseen chaos follows. |
| Castle of Otranto | 1,977 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.7 | 17 | Czech | An adaptation of the 1764 work of the same name, the first Gothic novel. In this mockumentary, the amateur archaeologist Dr. Vozáb has set to prove that the supernatural ghost love story takes place not in Italy, but in Otranto Castle near Náchod in Czechoslovakia. |
| A Boring Afternoon | 1,965 | Ivan Passer | Comedy, Drama | 6.7 | 17 | Czech | Several parties—a prostitute, aging football players, working girls, two men playing pool, and a hedonistic young man—each coalesce in a tavern. |
| Dissolved and Effused | 1,985 | Ladislav Smoljak | Comedy, Crime | 6.7 | 15 | Czech | A police inspector and inexperienced trainee search for a mysteriously disappeared manufacturer of ointments for hair growth. |
| The Deserter and the Nomads | 1,968 | Juraj Jakubisko | Drama, War | 6.7 | 14 | Slovak | An apocalyptic story of three wars in three film tales encompassing the end of the WWI,WWII, as well as a vision of the world destroyed by nuclear weapons. This film was honored at the film festivals in Venice and Sorrento. Immediately after that the copy with Italian subtitles was locked in a safe as evidence of the anti-communist activities of the director, who used real footage of the Soviet invasion. |
| The White Disease | 1,937 | Hugo Haas | Drama, Science Fiction | 6.7 | 14 | Czech | In a country whose people have just been successfully persuaded of their superiority and the justification for military expansion by the fiery speeches of a dictator, the bacillus of a highly destructive form of leprosy has spread. It is called morbus Tshengi, or popularly „white disease“. The only one who has developed an effective cure for it is a physician of the poor named Galén. But he refuses to reveal the secret of his cure as long as the powerful destroy human lives through wars. |
| Angel in the Mountains | 1,955 | Bořivoj Zeman | Comedy | 6.7 | 10 | Czech | Mr. Angel goes winter sporting and at the same time investigates his son's fiancee. |
| Rosa Luxemburg | 1,986 | Margarethe von Trotta | Drama, History | 6.6 | 54 | German | Polish socialist and Marxist Rosa Luxemburg works tirelessly in the service of revolution in early 20th century Poland and Germany. While Luxemburg campaigns for her beliefs, she is repeatedly imprisoned as she forms the Spartacist League offering a new vision for Germany. |
| The Man Who Lies | 1,968 | Alain Robbe-Grillet | Mystery, Drama, War | 6.6 | 40 | French | A man may or may not have betrayed a resistance fighter during World War II. He has supposedly been shot down by the Nazis and wanders into town. Mourning the death of an unseen comrade, he is taken in by the family of the dead rebel. He engages in a superfluous affair and witnesses the lesbian relationship between the man's sister and a female servant. When passions subside, the family has doubts about the reliability of the man's story. |
| Jabberwocky | 1,971 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.6 | 40 | English | In stop-motion animation, a wardrobe moves through the countryside. It arrives in a house, a child's voice recites Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," and various objects, such as toys and dolls, move about, disintegrate, and play out archetypal scenes. Like Carroll's verse, the images are at once familiar and unfamiliar. A child's play suit, hanging in the wardrobe, becomes the adventure's protagonist. |
| Intimate Lighting | 1,965 | Ivan Passer | Drama, Comedy | 6.6 | 36 | Czech | A musician and his girlfriend visit an old musician friend of his and his family. |
| How to Drown Dr. Mracek, the Lawyer | 1,975 | Václav Vorlíček | Comedy, Fantasy | 6.6 | 34 | Czech | There are still water spirits among us. One group lives in Prague, led by Mr. Wassermann, who is using his wife's family as a servants. All they ne... |
| The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday | 1,992 | Věra Chytilová | Comedy | 6.6 | 32 | Czech | Bohus is indolent and spends his days drinking brandy. One day he finds he has inherited a brickworks, several shops and a five-star hotel. Bohus sets out to tour his new empire, insulting everyone on the way. |
| The Snowdrop Festival | 1,984 | Jiří Menzel | Comedy, Drama | 6.6 | 30 | Czech | An episodic film about the inhabitants of Kersko, their hardships and their joys, most prominently hunting. A lyrical and humorous adaptation of writings by Bohumil Hrabal. |
| King Thrushbeard | 1,984 | Miloslav Luther | Family, Fantasy, Romance | 6.6 | 20 | Slovak | When a selfless king learns of a beautiful princess in a neighboring kingdom who callously turns down every suitor with an insult, he tries his luck to no avail. So, he hatches a plot with her father in which the princess is married to him, in disguise as a beggar, so he can teach her lessons about humility and compassion. |
| Leonardo's Diary | 1,972 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.6 | 19 | Czech | Animated drawings inspired by Leonardo da Vinci are intercut with seemingly unrelated (but in fact strangely similar) live-action scenes. |
| Club of the Laid Off | 1,989 | Jiří Barta | Animation, Fantasy, Horror | 6.6 | 16 | Czech | Laid-off old mannequins spend their cracked and broken lives in an old, abandoned warehouse. New mannequins are brought to the warehouse. They are old as well, but from a younger generation. The two groups must live together, but it's not easy at all. |
| The Octopuses from the Second Floor | 1,987 | Jindřich Polák | Comedy, Science Fiction, Family | 6.6 | 13 | Czech | While on vacation with their bickering parents, young Eva and her little brother Johnny find in a polluted lake two strange friendly sentient octopuses made of strange material that attracts electricity. They take them as pets. |
| Krakatit | 1,948 | Otakar Vávra | Science Fiction, Thriller, Mystery | 6.5 | 20 | Czech | In early 20th century Czechoslovakia, a gravely ill chemist recalls his discovery of a powerful explosive and how it landed in the hands of anarchists. |
| Currency and Peace | 1,988 | Vít Olmer | Drama, Crime | 6.5 | 17 | Czech | Martin is an innocent lad from small-town Mlada Boleslav who comes to big-city Prague, hoping to exchange his krona for deutschemarks so that he can visit Germany. A local spiv named Robert obliges Martin, but at an unfair exchange rate. When Martin finds out he was rooked, he plans revenge on Robert ... but then decides to join Robert's gang instead. |
| Men About Town | 1,969 | Zdeněk Podskalský | Comedy | 6.5 | 15 | Czech | Three blue collar workers have a night out in big city Prague. |
| The Lion and the Song | 1,959 | Břetislav Pojar | Animation | 6.5 | 14 | Czech | A musician is playing his music to some animals, when a hungry lion shows up. |
| The Brave Blacksmith | 1,984 | Petr Švéda | Family, Fantasy | 6.5 | 13 | Czech | Young blacksmith Mikeš sets out into the world for an adventure, accompanied by the miller's assistant Matěj and the boy Ondra. On their journey to rescue three enchanted princesses, the young men encounter a mischievous old hag, magic, and traps set by the Black King, but most importantly, they face their own temptations. |
| Homolka and Pocketbook | 1,972 | Jaroslav Papoušek | Comedy | 6.5 | 12 | Czech | The husband and wife Ludva and Hedus Homolkas with their twins Péta and Máta and Ludva's parents - the granny and grandpa - arrive in the snowy Spindleruv Mlýn for a holiday. They promise to each other that they will not spoil the quite expensive holiday by quarrels. If somebody hurts the other one he/she will kneel as a punishment. |
| The Junk Shop | 1,965 | Juraj Herz | Comedy | 6.5 | 11 | Czech | Juraj Herz adapts Bohumil Hrabal's story about a man who works in a junk shop. |
| Eva Fools Around | 1,939 | Martin Frič | Comedy | 6.5 | 11 | Czech | Eva's aunt is jealous of her neighbor's excellent roses and wants to know the secret. To help auntie out Eva applies for secretarial work at the neighbor's house in order to find out the formula. Things get complicated when it turns out that Eva's brother is in love with the daughter of the house and also wants to get in there under false pretenses. |
| Sleeping Beauty | 1,990 | Stanislav Párnický | Family, Fantasy, TV Movie | 6.5 | 10 | German | A beautiful princess born in a faraway kingdom is destined by a terrible curse to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep that can only be awakened by true love's first kiss. |
| Appeal to Your Love | 1,989 | Karel Kachyňa | Drama, Romance | 6.5 | 10 | Czech | A sad story about love between Czech boy and German girl during 1944. |
| The Boxer and Death | 1,963 | Peter Solan | Drama | 6.5 | 10 | Slovak | Concentration camp commander Kraft finds out that prisoner Kominek is a former professional boxer. Overnight, the prisoner is made Kraft's exercise partner and unwillingly rises to a privileged position at the camp. His anger over the death of his friend and co-prisoner leads to open revolt. The film brings a new view of human degradation during fascism by a tragic story of one man whose only chance for survival is to accept the rules of an unequal game. |
| Two Little Frosts | 1,955 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, Comedy | 6.5 | 10 | Czech | Two mischievous frost spirits make things chilly for a pair of travelers in this wintry comic folktale. |
| The Joke | 1,969 | Jaromil Jireš | Comedy, Drama | 6.4 | 40 | Czech | In the 1950s, Ludvik Jahn was expelled from the Communist Party and the University by his fellow students, because of a politically incorrect note he sent to his girlfriend. Fifteen years later, he tries to get his revenge by seducing Helena, the wife of one of his accusers. |
| Punch and Judy | 1,966 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.4 | 38 | Czech | Two puppets, Punch and Judy, do battle to the death over the custody of a live guinea pig. |
| Capricious Summer | 1,968 | Jiří Menzel | Comedy, Romance | 6.4 | 33 | Czech | Middle-aged Antonin and his friends, the major, now retired, and the canon, are in the river, swimming and philosophizing. Then it starts to rain. ... |
| Natural History Suite | 1,967 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.4 | 29 | Czech | An eight-part animated portrait of various species, accompanied by a different style of music. The various parts are: Aquatilia (foxtrot), Hexapoda (bolero), Pisces (blues), Reptilia (tarantella), Aves (tango), Mammalia (minuet), Simiae (polka) and Homo (waltz). Each animation mixes drawings, pictures, real animals and animated skeletons. |
| Audition | 1,964 | Miloš Forman | Music, Documentary | 6.4 | 28 | Czech | Two closely related episodes. Youths make problems for two local orchestras about to compete nationally, and in a talent competition a young girl gets stage fright, while another lies to her boss to compete. |
| The Smoke | 1,991 | Tomáš Vorel | Comedy, Music | 6.4 | 21 | Czech | The film is based on a legendary school film of Tomáš Vorel, called INg (1985). The storyline stays the same - a young engineer finds a new job and wants to work, this proves to be impossible in the last days of the communist era. |
| Behold Homolka | 1,970 | Jaroslav Papoušek | Comedy | 6.4 | 21 | Czech | This light comedy finds a Czech taxi driver taking his family on a weekend outing in the country. His wife, daughter-in-law, son and two grandchildren are the passengers who disturb the solitude of two young lovers. While the women attend the horse races, the father sits home getting drunk and watching football. The overweight daughter-in-law is upset because she has blown her chances to become a ballerina. All members of the family are caught up in their own individual problems in this realistically portrayed family comedy |
| The Fifth Horseman Is Fear | 1,965 | Zbyněk Brynych | Drama, War | 6.4 | 17 | Czech | In Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, a doctor-turned-warehouse employee reluctantly agrees to treat a gravely wounded political fugitive, putting himself and everyone living in his building complex in danger. |
| Oil Gobblers | 1,988 | Jan Svěrák | Documentary | 6.4 | 15 | Czech | A zoologist and a biochemist go out into an oilfield with a cameraman and filmmaker to observe and study the elusive oil gobblers. |
| It's Greek to Me-ow! | 1,961 | Gene Deitch | Animation, Comedy | 6.4 | 15 | English | This cartoon opens with a narrator introducing the ancient Greek Acropolis, describing its wealth and beautiful architecture. Tom is depicted as one of these inhabitants, an alley cat who lives in the shadows of Athens searching for food. |
| The Ninth Heart | 1,979 | Juraj Herz | Fantasy, Horror | 6.4 | 14 | Czech | Martin, a poor student, volunteers to go on a quest to find a cure for the princess Adriana, who is stricken with a strange illness. Unknown to Martin or anyone else, the princess is actually under the spell of the powerful magician Andlobrandini, who is preparing a rejuvenating elixir made from the blood of nine men's hearts. |
| Baton Out of the Bag | 1,956 | Jaromír Pleskot | Family, Fantasy | 6.4 | 14 | Czech | A poor musician with a good heart, as a reward for sharing even the last piece of bread despite being hungry himself, is rewarded with a miraculous... |
| From Saturday to Sunday | 1,931 | Gustav Machatý | Drama, Romance | 6.4 | 14 | Czech | Two secretaries go out on a double date, but the inexperienced Mary flees when offered money for sexual favors. She takes refuge in a cafe and encounters a plebeian Prince Charming. The film recounts the simple progress of their romance after they go home together. |
| Boys Will Be Boys | 1,976 | Věra Plívová-Šimková | Adventure, Comedy, Family | 6.4 | 12 | Czech | Three friends - Tomás, Hubert and Jozka - are boys growing up in a little town. Tomás lives with his aunt Apolena and uncle Václav. Tomás is a boy with lots of ideas that often end up getting him into trouble not only with his teachers and aunt, but with the other inhabitants of the town as well. He has a crush on his schoolmate Blanka and for her sake he decides to try to get the prize for the best pupil in the school. |
| Such Is Life | 1,930 | Carl Junghans | Drama | 6.4 | 11 | Czech | A story about domestic life in a typical working-class environment. Life and trials and how little situations have big consequences. |
| Tonka of the Gallows | 1,930 | Karl Anton | Drama | 6.4 | 11 | Czech | Melodramatic story of an innocent country girl (Ita Rina) who struggles to make a living in the city as a prostitute. As she provides last service to a murderer sentenced to death (Josef Rovenský), society condemns her and leads her to despair. This groundbreaking film directed by Karel Anton was made in 1930 as the first Czech feature movie with post-synchronised soundtrack, recorded in France. International star cast, sensitive adaptation of Egon Erwin Kisch’s short story and innovative combination of silent and sound film features make this movie an artwork of European significance. |
| Co je doma to se počítá, pánové... | 1,980 | Petr Schulhoff | Comedy | 6.4 | 10 | Czech | For the Novák and Bartáček families, money is king, and they'll do just about anything to get it. While René Novák pitches his parents a lucrative scheme to swindle as many people with the last name Novák in the country as possible, the Bartáček clan decides to pretend to be much poorer than they really are in order to siphon some dollars from an American relative. And it doesn't take long before these separate scams start to intertwine. |
| Old Czech Legends | 1,953 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, History | 6.4 | 10 | Czech | A monumental piece of art bringing the heroes of the ancient Czech myths back to life. The picture consists of seven parts: Cech the Forefather, Bivoj, Libuse, Premysl, Girls War, Horymir, Lucka War. |
| Ecstasy | 1,933 | Gustav Machatý | Drama, Romance | 6.3 | 78 | Czech | Eva has just gotten married to an older gentleman, but discovers that he is obsessed with order in his life and doesn't have much room for passion. She becomes despondent and leaves him, returning to her father's house. One day while bathing in the lake, she meets a young man and they fall in love. The husband has become grief stricken at the loss of his young bride, and fate brings him together with the young lover that has taken Eva from him. |
| How to Wake a Princess | 1,978 | Václav Vorlíček | Fantasy, Family | 6.3 | 29 | Czech | At long last, King Dalimil and Queen Eliška have produced an heir, Princess Růženka. Consumed with envy, Eliška’s sister Melánie casts a curse: On the day Růženka turns seventeen, she will prick her finger and fall into a deep sleep together with the entire kingdom. |
| The Tank Battalion | 1,991 | Vít Olmer | Comedy | 6.3 | 18 | Czech | The lacking attitude of a conscripted university graduate places him at odds with the power and doctrine of his military superiors. His secret relationship with the wife of a superior officer along with the low discipline of his fellow conscripts only heightens the disrespect towards the new post world war two communist regime. The first privately produced movie in Czech Republic. |
| Who's That Soldier? | 1,988 | Petr Tuček | Comedy | 6.3 | 15 | Czech | In the Czech film comedy from 1988, you can see for yourself that the war was not easy, but otherwise it was great fun. Sergeant Kouba serving with the paratroopers has a soft spot for women. His superior does not like him. However, during a military exercise on the way to the barracks, Kouba shows his true character when he saves the life of a little boy, convicts a thief and finds a lifelong partner in the commander's sister. |
| Tichá bolest | 1,991 | Martin Hollý | Drama | 6.3 | 12 | Czech | A young man has led his whole life with his grandfather. When he was in school, he was the only one who was refused to join the Youth Brigade, since his father was sentenced to death for spying. When it is time for him to do the compulsory military service, he has to do it in a platoon for "unreliable" persons. |
| Eden and After | 1,970 | Alain Robbe-Grillet | Drama, Mystery, Crime, Thriller | 6.2 | 58 | French | A group of French students are drawn into the psychological and sexual games of a mysterious man called Duchemin. Once they sample his "fear powder" the students experience a series of hallucinations. |
| Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea | 1,977 | Jindřich Polák | Comedy, Science Fiction | 6.2 | 49 | Czech | Former Nazi Klaus Abard survives to the 1990s by taking anti-ageing pills. He plans to use a time travel trip to return to Germany in 1944 and present Hitler with a hydrogen bomb, so that he can win the war. Unfortunately the pilot, woman-chasing Karel Bures, dies on the morning of the trip and his earnest twin brother Jan impersonates him, without knowing about the plot. |
| DS-70 nevyjíždí | 1,951 | Martin Frič | Drama | 6.2 | 35 | Czech | |
| Something Different | 1,963 | Věra Chytilová | Drama | 6.2 | 28 | Czech | In her first feature, Věra Chytilová uses a combination of documentary and fiction film techniques to tell two stories in counterpoint. The first follows Olympic champion gymnast Eva Bosáková, who contemplates retirement as she undergoes a gruelling training schedule; the second, a housewife who is unappreciated and ignored by her husband. |
| Erotikon | 1,930 | Gustav Machatý | Drama, Romance | 6.2 | 24 | Czech | Andrea, the beautiful daughter of a railway gateman, is seduced by a rich passenger, who missed his train. Left pregnant, Andrea marries another man and moves to Prague, only to encounter her former lover and recover her former lust. |
| Those Wonderful Movie Cranks | 1,979 | Jiří Menzel | Comedy | 6.2 | 13 | Czech | Returning home to Prague, the magician Pasparte, an owner of a circus caravan, meets his dying colleague who entrusts his beautiful daughter Aloisie to his care. In Prague they all take up their lodgings at the house At Blue Fish in which they intend to arrange the programs. The firm is owned by widow Evzenie with whom Pasparte shares flat and bed. Evzenie is jealous of Aloisie therefore Pasparte sends Aloisie as a housewife to the single man Jakub Kolenatý who earns his living by photographing and wants to record the revived pictures of Prague. Pasparte wants to found in Prague the first permanent Czech movie theatre in which there would be projected also the original Czech films. |
| A Quiet Week in the House | 1,969 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.1 | 32 | Czech | A man, apparently on the run, takes shelter in a dilapidated house. Every day, he drills a hole through a wall and looks into one of the rooms, each time seeing a different surreal vision. |
| On the Comet | 1,970 | Karel Zeman | Adventure, Science Fiction, Comedy | 6.1 | 30 | Czech | When a comet passes the Earth very closely, it pulls a small part of North Africa, and a small swathe of humanity, along with it. |
| J.S. Bach: Fantasia in G minor | 1,965 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 6.1 | 30 | Czech | A man plays the Bach piece of the title on the organ, accompanied by images of stone walls with cracks and holes that grow and shrink, intercut with images of doors and wire-meshed windows. |
| A Nice Plate of Spinach | 1,977 | Václav Vorlíček | Comedy | 6.1 | 25 | Czech | The heroes of this absurd comedy, full of confusion and humor are Dzharda Zemanek and Frantisek Liska. |
| Why? | 1,987 | Karel Smyczek | Drama | 6.1 | 18 | Czech | Why? (Czech: Proč?) is a 1987 Czechoslovak drama film directed by Karel Smyczek. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. The film deals with the hooliganism in Czechoslovakia, particularly with the fans of football club Sparta from Prague, whose supporters were the pioneers of the football fan riots in Czechoslovakia, starting with hooligan actions already in the 1960s, like breaking the trains in which they travelled when they went on Sparta's away games. The film deals with one of such episodes |
| The Design | 1,981 | Jiří Barta | Animation | 6.1 | 18 | Czech | Animators and urban planners both create worlds, but Czech stop motion specialist Jiří Barta's ingenious paper cut-out short punctures the stifling architecture of communist housing. Skilled hands blueprint an apartment tower standardized specifications. Envelopes contain the elements of each home. Family dwellings, bachelor pads, scholarly studies and artist studios: different social configurations are permitted but restrained to the same uniform box. A dystopian revision of the REAR WINDOW scenario, THE DESIGN's darkly comic social critique still has teeth. |
| Where the Wild Things Are | 1,975 | Gene Deitch | Animation, Family, Fantasy | 6.1 | 14 | English | A young boy named Max who, after dressing in his wolf costume, wreaks such havoc through his household that he is sent to bed without his supper. Max's bedroom undergoes a mysterious transformation into a jungle environment, and he winds up sailing to an island inhabited by malicious beasts known as the "Wild Things." After successfully intimidating the creatures, Max is hailed as the king of the Wild Things and enjoys a playful romp with his subjects. However, he starts to feel lonely and decides to return home, to the Wild Things' dismay. Upon returning to his bedroom, Max discovers a hot supper waiting for him. |
| Love Between the Raindrops | 1,980 | Karel Kachyňa | Romance, Comedy, Drama | 6.1 | 12 | Czech | Set in Prague during the years leading up to World War II, this family saga tells the story of a cobbler named Vincenc Bursik (Vladimir Mensik), who uproots his clan from the country to the city, only to suffer the loss of his wife and the failure of his shoe business within months. When his daughter moves away to go live with a wealthy businessman as his mistress, Vincenc is left to take care of his two sons, who spend their days in a secret garden vying for the affections of a teenage girl. |
| A Thousand and One Nights | 1,974 | Karel Zeman | Animation, Adventure, Fantasy | 6.1 | 11 | Czech | Five different exploits of Sinbad the sailor where he gets mixed up with the pretty daughters of exotic potentates, with powerful monsters that threaten his existence, and with all sorts of teeming jungle life. |
| The Czech Year | 1,947 | Jiří Trnka | Animation | 6.1 | 10 | Czech | The first full-length puppet film made by Jiri Trnka. Like the painter Ales who illustrated the national songs, Trnka depicts the traditional customs and tales of the Czech village in six separate sequences: Shrovetide, Spring, Legend About St. Prokop, The Fair, The Feast and Bethlehem." A Treasury of Fairy-tales" made Trnka famous all over the world and it is a masterpiece of Czech and world animation. |
| The Story of the Voyages | 1,983 | Aleksandr Mitta | Family, Fantasy, Adventure | 6 | 26 | Russian | In this fantasy with dragons and flying machines, 10-year-old Marta is determined to find her brother who was kidnapped at Christmastime by a fake Saint Nick because the little boy is blessed with the ability to locate gold. A kindly, wise philosopher-type by the name of Orlando joins Marta in her search, and together they survive a gigantic sleeping dragon and imprisonment in a tower with no clear means of escape. They overcome that hurdle, but later on, Orlando succumbs to the evils of The Plague (an all-consuming woman!) and Marta continues on her search alone. Eventually, she does find her brother -- but that only introduces problems she had never considered. |
| Four Murders Are Enough, Darling | 1,971 | Oldřich Lipský | Crime, Comedy | 6 | 22 | Czech | Two criminal gangs are ruthlessly fighting for a 1-million dollar check that, purely by chance, got into the flat of shy high school teacher George Camel. As the number of victims sharply increases, Camel is mistakenly regarded as a mass murderer and cunningly uses his horrifying reputation to get the respect and heart of his beloved Sabrina, a journalist from a local newspaper. But this game turns out to be risky and in the end, both gangs don't hesitate to seize the check at all costs, including an improvised operation |
| The End of August at the Hotel Ozone | 1,967 | Jan Schmidt | Science Fiction | 6 | 21 | Czech | A troupe of young women on post-apocalyptic earth are lead around by a mistress born before the war, eventually stumbling into the company of a lonely old man. |
| Romeo, Juliet and Darkness | 1,960 | Jiří Weiss | Drama, War | 6 | 21 | Czech | Pavel, a young student living in Prague in 1942, hides a Jewish girl in his apartment building's attic. Amidst the brutality of the occupying German army, love blossoms between the two. He is her only link to the outside world. Then the two are discovered by Pavel's mother, who forces the residents of the apartment building to decide whether Hana can remain. |
| Cybernetic Grandma | 1,963 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, Science Fiction | 6 | 16 | Czech | Trnka’s sci-fi vision of the future in which machines and robots try to substitute themselves into the most beautiful human relationships. A cybernetic robot is supposed to substitute for the loving grandmother of a little girl. The wise grandmother, however, comes back and the girl finds the warmth of her grandmother’s loving arms again. Trnka’s artistic ideas in this film can be described as both poetically fragile and dramatically cautionary. |
| Almost King | 1,977 | Bořivoj Zeman | Fantasy, Family | 6 | 13 | Czech | A fairy tale about how those who have a heart and are not stingy will not fail. The most popular hero of Czech fairy tales, besides the brave prince and the beautiful princess, is undoubtedly Honza, who is often not stupid at all, but on the contrary brave, clever, handsome and cheerful. |
| How Poets Are Enjoying Their Lives | 1,988 | Dušan Klein | Comedy | 6 | 11 | Czech | While Kendy returns to his hometown as an assistant director to film a thirteen-part series with a television crew, Štěpán Šafránek, equipped with his mother's advice after graduation, takes up his first position - as an intern at the local hospital. However, his inadaptability to local conditions and his sense of ethics in his chosen profession do not suit his other established colleagues. While they are amused by his zeal and responsibility, Štěpán has increasing problems with his superiors, until he is finally transferred to the position of rural district doctor, which everyone rejects. In Bezdíkov, however, he meets a new, perhaps permanent and reciprocated love, with whom he eventually decides to live and work in northern Bohemia. |
| The End of Old Times | 1,990 | Jiří Menzel | Comedy | 6 | 10 | Czech | Czechoslovakia 1918. The newly formed National Assembly has made Stoklasa the administrator of the Kratochvile Castle. Although with no aristocratic background, he is a man of fortune and is trying to buy the castle. To impress his neighbors and the local politicians he invites them to a great hunting party. Uninvited comes a man who claims to be Duke Alexej. Stoklasa believes him to be a hustler. This hustler, however, manages to charm all the women before he leaves. |
| Jumping Over Puddles | 1,971 | Karel Kachyňa | Drama, Family | 6 | 10 | Czech | This Czechoslovakian children’s film takes place during the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The young son of a horse trainer loves nothing more than riding his horse, until he is stricken by polio… |
| King Lavra | 1,951 | Karel Zeman | Animation, Comedy | 6 | 10 | Czech | A king hides an embarrassing secret - and it causes him to execute every barber who cuts his hair. |
| The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians | 1,981 | Oldřich Lipský | Comedy, Science Fiction | 5.9 | 35 | Czech | In 1897, in a castle near the town of Werewolfville in the Carpithians, a slightly deranged Professor Orfanik experiments with his new inventions which include, even at this early date, television and a film camera. He is also an obsessed opera fan, keeps the body of his favorite diva preserved in a crypt in the castle. In order to keep away nosy visitors, the baron's mad-scientist assistant, invents all sorts of spooky phenomena in order to give the castle a creepy reputation. |
| Pearls of the Deep | 1,966 | Věra Chytilová | Comedy | 5.9 | 31 | Czech | A quintet of vignettes based on short stories by Bohumil Hrabal: an eventful trip to the motorcycle races results in drunkenness, long-winded discussions, and death; two elderly men create false biographies; insurance agents visit an eccentric painter/goat farmer and his mother; guests at a wedding reception remain oblivious to outlying misery; and a working-class boy romances a Roma girl. |
| Prince and the Evening Star | 1,979 | Václav Vorlíček | Fantasy, Family | 5.9 | 23 | Czech | A wonderful fairytale about looking for love, defeating evil and learning some valuable moral lessons on the way. The story begins with the young P... |
| Salt & Gold | 1,983 | Martin Hollý | Fantasy, Family | 5.9 | 18 | Slovak | A fairy-tale about the power of love. The old king Pravoslav feels it is time to entrust the rule over his kingdom to one of his three daughters - the one that loves him the most. The youngest, Maruška, fails her father's expectations about proving how deep her love him is. He misunderstands her and she is made to leave the castle. She faces many dangers on the way to her loved one, the Salt Prince. |
| A Bagful of Fleas | 1,963 | Věra Chytilová | Drama | 5.9 | 18 | Czech | The themes of anarchy and individualism that run through Věra Chytilová’s work begin here, in an almost docu-realist look at women finding freedom and joy amid the rigid conformity of life in a communal factory dormitory. |
| The Hop-Pickers | 1,964 | Ladislav Rychman | Romance, Music, Drama | 5.9 | 17 | Czech | Working on the hops fields gathering hops for beer, Filip catches a glimpse of fellow worker/comrade Hanka and falls for her. Trying to keep their love secret from the field owners,fellow worker Honza becomes jealous of Filip having a romance with Hanka, which leads to Honza deciding that he will feed the hop field owners Hanka and Filip's secret romantic hops. |
| Princess Jasnenka and the Flying Shoemaker | 1,987 | Zdeněk Troška | Family, Fantasy | 5.9 | 16 | Czech | Fairy tale about young cobbler Jíra, who had fashioned wings from leather in order to rescue princess Jasnenka from the tower of the royal castle, where her father had closed her to to save her from the evil witch and her daughter Cernava. |
| Aimless Walk | 1,930 | Alexander Hammid | Documentary | 5.9 | 15 | Czech | This first true Czech avant-garde film turns away from a purely celebratory approach to the city. The camera follows a detached protagonist on his wanderings, as his highly subjective journey becomes a fragmented visualization of urban landscapes. |
| Courage for Every Day | 1,965 | Evald Schorm | Drama | 5.9 | 12 | Czech | A passionate communist worker is discouraged by the changing political climate and the failure of his peers to live up to his ideals. |
| The End of Agent W4C | 1,967 | Václav Vorlíček | Comedy | 5.9 | 12 | Czech | The invincible agent Cyril Juan Borguette alias W4C has been assigned a mission to go to a hotel in Prague, get hold of a saltcellar with a plan for the military exploitation of Venus hidden in it, and hand it over to the beautiful agent Alice. He will have to compete for the saltcellar with other agents working for the world's various greater and smaller powers. The head of the Prague counter-intelligence unit gets news of agent W4C's mission. Deficient in personnel, he nominates accountant Foustka as agent 13B. Mr Foustka takes his dog Pajda with him and the two head for the airport. Pajda helps him track down agent W4C in a classy hotel that becomes the battleground for the interests and plans of the secret agents from different countries, each trying to get hold of the precious saltcellar. |
| The Millennial Bee | 1,983 | Juraj Jakubisko | Comedy, Drama, History | 5.9 | 10 | Slovak | A family saga taking place mostly in a small Slovak village over a period of thirty years (1887–1917). The first part captures the life of Martin Pichandu in the development of his craft, masonry; in the second part, his son is center stage living in a period of socio-political crisis, which ultimately results in the first World War. After originally airing on Czechoslovakian television in 1983 as a four-part 226-minute mini-series, this production received a 163-minute theatrical release in 1984. |
| The Divine Emma | 1,979 | Jiří Krejčík | Drama, History | 5.9 | 10 | Czech | The opera lady singer Ema Destinnová is in all her splendor at the American stages. But in Europe there rages war and she decides to return home to Bohemia. |
| Et cetera | 1,967 | Jan Švankmajer | Animation | 5.8 | 34 | Czech | A small, animated figure learns how to use a whip, a pair of wings and a house. |
| Snowdrops and Aces | 1,983 | Karel Smyczek | Comedy, Family | 5.8 | 20 | Czech | A quarter century after the release of the original film, this sequel brings us a drama about platonic love, life retrospective and memories. Former schoolmates meet again in the mountains and it turns out they have not changed much. Even though so many years have passed, we can still see the souls of boys and girls we know from the teenage comedy Snowdrops and Aces; kids who participated in that legendary skiing course. Its nostalgic humour gives the film a bitter-sweet touch. Thawing Out follows the lives of the main heroes during a period of great changes. How did they manage to escape the traps and what scars have they suffered? Where did they want to go, how far have they got and what is still in front of them? |
| The Third Prince | 1,983 | Antonín Moskalyk | Family, Fantasy, Romance | 5.8 | 19 | Czech | Brave sons of the king, twin brothers Jaroslav and Jaromír love and help each other. It was they and another brother - Jindrich, who once saw the portrait of Princess of Diamond Mountains, fell in love and went on her quest. |
| The Secret of Steel City | 1,979 | Ludvík Ráža | Science Fiction, Drama | 5.8 | 18 | Czech | The film is a metaphor for the Cold War. It depicts two neighbouring nations: peace loving Fortuna and the not so peaceful land of the Steel City. |
| Stalingrad: Film 1 | 1,990 | Yuri Ozerov | War, History | 5.8 | 16 | Russian | In January 1942, Adolf Hitler appoints Fedor von Bock to command Army Group South and supervise Operation Blau. The German forces advance in the south of Russia, scattering the Soviets and approaching Stalingrad, that seems on the verge of falling to the enemy's hands. The movie ends with Vasily Chuikov assuming command of the 62nd Army at September. |
| How Poets Are Losing Their Illusions | 1,985 | Dušan Klein | Comedy | 5.8 | 15 | Czech | A story about a young medical school student and his adventures. |
| Words, Words, Words | 1,993 | Michaela Pavlátová | Animation | 5.8 | 12 | Czech | In a cafe, people talk, their words become expresively-shaped balloons. An older waiter tries to connect with a young woman who's reading. She brushes him off, but gets into an animated and romantic conversation with a young man. A dog goes from table to table drinking beer and wine when people aren't looking. Older men talk about sexual conquests until one of their wives interrupts them. The young couple argues; he starts to leave, she pleads, he leaves anyway. The waiter tries to help. Old guys talk until they nod off. Women chat. Later, as the waiter cleans up, the finds the young woman's book. He sighs, the dog sleeps it off. |
| Springman and the SS | 1,946 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, Comedy, War | 5.7 | 28 | Czech | The first animated picture made by Jiří Trnka for adults. It is a comic story of a legendary chimney-cleaner who, with the help of a spring from an old lounge-chair, became the terror of the Prague-occupying SS troops in World War II. |
| I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen | 1,970 | Oldřich Lipský | Science Fiction, Comedy | 5.7 | 27 | Czech | This futuristic science fiction comedy features an atomic bomb blast that causes women to grow beards and lose the ability to have children. A summit meeting is held at the United Nations, with the proposed solution of building a time machine. The decision is made to travel back in time and murder Einstein, with the hopeful result being that without the noted mathematician's research there will be no atomic bombs. |
| The Fall of the House of Usher | 1,982 | Jan Švankmajer | Mystery, Animation, Horror | 5.7 | 24 | Czech | In this animated version of Edgar Allan Poe's story, a traveller arrives at the Usher mansion to find that the sibling inhabitants are living under a mysterious family curse. The brother's senses have become painfully acute, while his sister has become nearly catatonic. |
| A Christmas Dream | 1,945 | Bořivoj Zeman | Animation, Fantasy | 5.7 | 24 | Czech | Christmas has arrived. As a little girl and her parents enter the room, the little girl finds all kinds of toys under the Christmas Tree. She immediately throws her old doll aside and starts playing with her new dolls. But that night she has a dream. Or maybe it isn't a dream? |
| Disc Jockey | 1,980 | Jiří Barta | Animation | 5.7 | 17 | Czech | An alarm clock wakes a man who washes his face, has breakfast, drives his car to work, spins records, returns home, and takes his pills. It's a world of circles - often seen from above: an espresso cup, a stairwell, the pills, and the records spinning. At the dance where the music plays, the rhythms evoke images of a butcher slicing head cheese, gears driving other wheels and levers, a combine churning out bales of hay, a butcher cutting chunks of meat for a stew, and boxers punching. The circle of music and life. |
| How the World Is Losing Poets | 1,982 | Dušan Klein | Comedy | 5.7 | 13 | Czech | Inseparable friends Štěpán and Kendy are students in their final year of high school. When they are in the principal's office after the trouble with the rather scandalous song "On the Carpet", the school principal gives them the idea of rehearsing a theater performance. They decide on Tyl's Forest Maiden in a rather unconventional version - with music, singing, and several unusual props. While Kendy sees the theater as not only an opportunity to enjoy himself, for Štěpán it is a chance to get closer to the charming Marcela Borůvková. What was originally just a student recession soon starts to get out of hand for both authors, not only because of the quirky cast but also because of information in the press, which is taken care of by the father of one of the classmates. The business is gaining in size, and even a television station is contacted, which shows an interest in making a program about the performance. At that moment, the disaster seems inevitable to Štěpán and Kendy. |
| A Hoof Here, a Hoof There | 1,989 | Věra Chytilová | Drama, Comedy | 5.7 | 12 | Czech | A striking generational tragicomedy, A Hoof Here, a Hoof There is a caustic group portrait of pals who enjoy a tipple, all kinds of hi-jinks and no-strings sexual adventures. Auditor Pepe, vet Dědek and restaurant manager František are financially secure and enjoy life with their similarly fun-loving girlfriends—at least until the moment when the brash Pepe collapses and ends up in hospital. |
| Riddles for a Candy | 1,978 | Jiří Barta | Fantasy, Animation | 5.7 | 12 | Czech | In Jiří Barta’s imaginative debut, a magic book poses three riddles to an anteater-like creature. His reward for answering, a wrapped piece of candy, proves elusive. Barta's animation revels in the possibilities of transformation and symbolic logic. |
| The Damned House of Hajn | 1,989 | Jiří Svoboda | Drama, Thriller, Horror, Mystery | 5.7 | 11 | Czech | Sonya is the heiress to the riches of a Czech noble family—the Hajns. Petr, a social climber marries her, ignoring some shady goings-on—in particular, an insane uncle who prowls the mansion believing himself invisible, a peccadillo the family indulges. The uncle’s stalking every corner of the house, popping out of cupboards and out from behind curtains slowly takes its toll on the young bride. |
| The Fountain for Suzanne | 1,986 | Dušan Rapoš | Comedy, Drama, Music | 5.7 | 11 | Slovak | A story about the life and troubles of young people living in the city. The teenagers have to face real life, make their first major decisions, and learn that romance sometimes brings disappointment. |
| Sun, Hay, Erotica | 1,991 | Zdeněk Troška | Comedy | 5.6 | 25 | Czech | The local farmers' cooperative organized a trip to Italy, in which the Škopkovci took part. They went there at the invitation of the Italian agricu... |
| The Return of the Prodigal Son | 1,967 | Evald Schorm | Drama | 5.6 | 17 | Czech | Engineer Jan Sebek (Jan Kacer) is undergoing treatment in a mental home after his unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide. His therapist, via discussions both with the patient and with people who know him, tries to find out what made the young and seemingly satisfied man decide to end his own life. Jan's pretty wife Jana (Jana Brejchová) claims not to know about anything but she is conducting an affair with a family friend, almost publicly and with the blessing of her parents. |
| The Wolves of Willoughby Chase | 1,989 | Stuart Orme | Drama, Family, Fantasy, Science Fiction | 5.6 | 14 | English | A Dickensian mock-Gothic tale of resourceful children, evil governesses, forged wills, cruel orphanages, and goodness triumphant set against an isolated country house, in an alternate 19th century where savage packs of wolves roam the snowbound countryside. |
| Killing the Devil | 1,970 | Ester Krumbachová | Comedy, Fantasy | 5.6 | 14 | Czech | A lonely woman gets more than she bargained for when she begins wooing Mr Devil, an insatiable glutton who turns out to be the boyfriend from Hell. |
| 90° in the Shade | 1,965 | Jiří Weiss | Crime, Drama | 5.6 | 14 | Czech | In a Prague shop, an assistant has been carrying on an affair with the dishonest, married manager. An emotionally repressed auditor with domestic problems of his own uncovers serious stock discrepancies. A test of loyalties and a questioning of values concludes in tragedy. |
| Mr. Blot in Space | 1,988 | Krzysztof Gradowski | Fantasy, Family | 5.6 | 13 | Polish | It's Christmas, and children at an orphanage in Maliszewo receive a computer that was given to them by another orphan who used to live there many y... |
| Oil Lamps | 1,971 | Juraj Herz | Drama | 5.6 | 11 | Czech | In 1900, Stepha, the vivacious 30 year old daughter of a wealthy couple, agrees to marry her cousin Paul, who has accumulated large debts as an Austrian army officer. Paul refuses to work or to consummate the marriage, and then his health steadily declines. |
| Men Without Wings | 1,946 | František Čáp | War, Drama | 5.6 | 10 | Czech | After an attack against the guard of the Third Reich, Nazi repression intensifies, and the Czechoslovakian resistance's organized sabotage in an aircraft factory leads to Gestapo shootings. |
| J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit | 1,967 | Gene Deitch | Animation, Fantasy, Adventure | 5.5 | 43 | English | The very first movie adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit. Made in just 30 days so that the producer could keep the rights to Tolkien's books. |
| Song of the Prairie | 1,949 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, Western | 5.5 | 15 | Czech | An animated singing western short in which a cowboy takes on the villain to save his beloved. |
| Guernica | 1,978 | Emir Kusturica | Drama | 5.5 | 14 | Czech | The initiation of a young Jewish child into Guernica's world. |
| Story of the Bass Cello | 1,949 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, Fantasy | 5.5 | 12 | Czech | "Román s basou" is another short by master a stop-motion puppet-animator Jiri Trnka. The story is based on Anton Chekhovs story "Roman s Kontrabasom". Princess Bibulova decides to go fishing along the river while not far away a bass player leaves his two companions to go for a swim. |
| Prague Nights | 1,969 | Miloš Makovec | Comedy, Drama, Horror | 5.5 | 11 | Czech | A stuffy middle-aged foreigner, a businessman named Fabricius, lonely and looking for a night's diversion, finds it in the form of a mysterious blonde. In an abandoned cemetery, she tells him three tales involving black magic and erotic obsession. In "The Last Golem," a young rabbi struggles to fashion a massive, silent giant out of living clay — until he's distracted by a mute servant girl. In the second episode, "Bread Slippers," an 18th-century countess indulges her passion for sweet cakes, adulterous affairs, and secret kisses with pretty maids until a mysterious visitor whisks her away to an abandoned mansion, where Fate has a different kind of dance in store for her. And in the final story, "Poisoned Poisoner," a ravishing murderess in the Middle Ages dispatches lecherous merchants to the tune of upbeat '60s Czech pop songs. |
| The White Lady | 1,965 | Zdeněk Podskalský | Comedy, Fantasy | 5.5 | 11 | Czech | This castle has its own ghost - a mysterious White lady. She emerges from the painting on the wall when someone speaks out magic formula. White lady is good ghost, she can make someone's wishes true. Even if it is a new duct. But a miracle is not the thing that Communist leaders want in the town. |
| The Last Butterfly | 1,991 | Karel Kachyňa | Drama | 5.5 | 10 | Czech | Stage mime Antoine Moreau is compelled by the Gestapo to put on a performance for the children of Terezin, a "model" concentration camp, to convince the Red Cross observers that the camp is truly what it seems. Reluctant at first, Moreau slowly learns the true nature of the camp, including the meaning of the "transports" on which people leave. With a world-class orchestra (made up of people interned in the camp) and a cast of children, Moreau stages a show to end all shows. |
| Calamity | 1,982 | Věra Chytilová | Comedy | 5.5 | 10 | Czech | Funny banter about love, sex, social status, and other ideals, while a new railway employee is trained and sent on his first run as driver. |
| The Murderer Hides His Face | 1,966 | Petr Schulhoff | Drama, Crime | 5.5 | 10 | Czech | In the forest near the village of Drahovice, a nurse from the local health center is found murdered. Three months ago, another young woman died nearby and a sexual motive was proved in the case of her murder. In the case of the nurse, the motives are not so clear. Two criminologists from Prague - Major Kalas (Rudolf Hrusínský) and Lieutenant Varga (Radoslav Brzobohatý) - patiently collect all available leads and question the villagers. |
| The Emperor's Nightingale | 1,949 | Jiří Trnka | Animation, Family, Fantasy | 5.4 | 16 | Czech | Adaptation of a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, about an emperor who prefers the tinkling of a bejeweled mechanical bird to the song of a real nightingale. When the Emperor is near death, the nightingale's song restores his health. |
| The Secret of an Old Attic | 1,984 | Vladimir Tadej | Family, Adventure, Science Fiction | 5.4 | 12 | SH | During a summer holiday, two boys discover an anti-gravity cannon in an old attic. |
| Let Him Face the Music! | 1,978 | Ladislav Rychman | Comedy, Music | 5.4 | 12 | Czech | School supply teacher timid folk art Ales Brabec won first prize at a music festival and will therefore offer to work for the Prague little theater in the basement. Its director Soukup just needs a few songs for the upcoming musical, and so is willing to do everything to Alex to create the right atmosphere for composing. |
| The Most Beautiful Age | 1,969 | Jaroslav Papoušek | Comedy | 5.4 | 12 | Czech | An artist's studio is descended upon by a group of retired men and a young mother who agree to model in the nude for money. Comedy ensues as the students and the local bureaucracy react to the models, all in need of extra money. Several running gags border on slapstick as the officials and the students don't know what to do with the nude models. |
| Sitting on a Branch, Enjoying Myself | 1,989 | Juraj Jakubisko | Drama, Comedy | 5.4 | 11 | Slovak | Pepe and Prengel, returning from war, meet Ester and both fall in love with the girl and live together in a deserted house. Fanatic communist, Zelmira, wants to turn their world upside-down. |
| The Witches Cave | 1,989 | Yuriy Moroz | Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure, Romance | 5.3 | 15 | Russian | An interstellar expedition is sent to study a strange planet. Despite the fact that creatures from various Earth time periods inhabit the world, the natives possess metal swords, even though they should have no knowledge of such weaponry. |
| Requiem for a Maiden | 1,992 | Filip Renč | Drama | 5.3 | 12 | Czech | A fourteen-year-old girl isplaced in an institution for mentally ill instead of a foster-home due to an official mistake. Here she gets a most cruel treatment which is governed by high-handedness of the spineless and perverse nurses. The girl attempts a desperate escape. |
| 322 | 1,970 | Dušan Hanák | Drama | 5.3 | 11 | Slovak | A story of a man threatened by a fatal illness evaluating his life (the number 322 in the film title stands for the diagnosis of one kind of cancer). He understands his illness as a form of punishment for his cruel deeds in the 1950s. In the face of reality and his efforts to cleanse himself he hits a barrier of indifference, lack of interest, and individual and collective selfishness. He has to find his own reconciliation with his illness and his past and present life. |
| Discopríbeh 2 | 1,991 | Jaroslav Soukup | Comedy, Music | 5.3 | 10 | Czech | The fate of father and son Horáček, but this time they switched roles. Jirka has married, settled down and grown up, while his father is in trouble because he has "second lymphoma" and, feeling that he is missing the last train, he starts a relationship with a stripper, Ala, dyes his hair, but mostly he likes a pretty and kind nurse, Lucie. Although he behaves in such a way that it seems to others as if he has lost his mind, everything turns out well, of course. |
| The Light Penetrates the Dark | 1,931 | Otakar Vávra | Documentary | 5.3 | 10 | Czech | Zdenek Pešánek created the first public kinetic sculpture, for the power station in Prague. This short experimental film focuses on a kinetic sculpture by Zdenek Pešánek. For a period of eight years it issued beams of light from the outside wall of a transformer station at Prague’s power utility before its destruction in 1939. Though genuine, these shots seem abstract to us. They are a rhythmically assembled ode to the light-creating devices and phenomena of electricity. Light arcs, coils, bulbs and various luminous elements support the alternation of positive and negative film images, creating an impressive universe of light and shade. In the 1920s, Pešánek had obtained financial support for his work with electric kinetic light art. In the 1930s, he was the first sculptor to use neon lights. He built several kinetic light pianos, and published a book titled “Kinetismus” in 1941. —http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org |
| Ferat Vampire | 1,982 | Juraj Herz | Horror, Science Fiction | 5.2 | 35 | Czech | A doctor is shocked when his beloved colleague Mima signs a contract with foreign car manufacturer Ferat, in order to work for them as a rally-driver. A scientist convinces him that human blood is being used as fuel for Mima's ever winning car, but does that really work? |
| I Love, You Love | 1,988 | Dušan Hanák | Romance, Drama | 5.2 | 14 | Slovak | The drama called I Love, You Love was made in 1980 but because of the absurd ideological ban, the film entered cinemas nine years later. Pišta is an unmarried man who works at a freight wagon which carries letters and parcels. Alcohol helps him to overcome his handicap of being short and not good-looking. He wishes he had a woman, but the woman he really wants, ageing Viera who reloads the cargoes, has a soft spot for another man. So, Pišta has nobody and nothing, except for senile mother who sometimes fails to recognize him. The film received Silver Bear for Best Director at the International Film Festival in Berlin. |
| The Females | 1,970 | Zbyněk Brynych | Crime, Drama, Horror | 5.2 | 13 | German | A young woman joins an exclusive women's health clinic only to discover it's run by feminist cannibals. |
| Summer with a Cowboy | 1,976 | Ivo Novák | Comedy | 5.2 | 10 | Czech | The main characters are a young psychologist Doubravka and a village youth, Honza Macháček. He is a tractor driver who temporarily lost his driver's license in a crazy bet, so he now herds a cooperative herd of cows, she is at the cottage with her boy Boba, who is not very successful in studying medicine and is currently preparing for his remedial exams. Honza's immediacy, optimism and approach to life and work contrast sharply with the selfish, weak-willed and unbalanced Boba, and Doubravka increasingly realizes that her feelings for Boba have disappeared and that she actually loves Honza. The question is how her somewhat conservative family will view such a game. |
| Of Things Supernatural | 1,959 | Miloš Makovec | Mystery, Fantasy, Comedy | 5.2 | 10 | Czech | An anthology of three absurd, ironic tales inspired by Čapek’s “Tales from One Pocket” and “Fables and Side Stories,” each showing uncanny forces disrupting ordinary lives: in Krejčík’s “Glorie,” a gentle clerk is haunted by a sudden halo; the other two segments by Mach and Makovec similarly blend everyday routines with ironic, supernatural twists. |
| Before Tonight Is Over | 1,966 | Peter Solan | Drama | 5.1 | 10 | Slovak | Two female clerks using up their savings to enjoy a few days of carefree life, two plumbers looking for an erotic adventure, a building contractor determined to drink away all wages of his workers and a former major who became an alcoholic due to political persecution — these people meet in a ski resort bar somewhere in the High Tatras. During one night they gradually reveal their unfulfilled dreams, illusions and disappointments of ”average" people of those times. |
| Martyrs of Love | 1,967 | Jan Němec | Romance, Comedy | 5 | 12 | Czech | Three loosely-connected tales that represent different aspects of love: temptation, dreams, and adventure. |
| Miraculous Virgin | 1,967 | Štefan Uher | Mystery, Drama, Comedy | 5 | 12 | Slovak | A film adaptation of the novelette of the same title written by Dominik Tatarka depicts the life of a young generation of artists that was formed in Slovakia during the war. Anabella, a young and beautiful girl meets a group of artists. She awakens their erotic desires but also pure feelings of love; she becomes the object of their secret fantasies as well as their artistic inspiration. And it seems that the boundaries between reality and fantasy suddenly cease to exist. |
| Discopříběh | 1,987 | Jaroslav Soukup | Music, Comedy | 5 | 11 | Czech | Jirka Horáček, a teenager living with his father on a Pilsen housing estate, spends his free time at discos with friends. One night he meets the confident blonde Eva, who is already involved with an older suitor, Cáfa, and also encounters the kind Jitka. Despite Jitka’s interest, Jirka becomes infatuated with Eva and tries to win her favor, all while his reckless pursuits strain his relationship with his impatient father. |
| Romance for Bugle | 1,967 | Otakar Vávra | Drama, Romance | 5 | 11 | Czech | A lyrical story about first love, death and disappointment, based on a poem of the same title. |
| The Golem | 1,936 | Julien Duvivier | Fantasy, Drama, Horror | 4.8 | 13 | French | The Golem, a giant creature created out of clay by a rabbi, comes to life in a time of trouble to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution. |
| Kamarád do deště | 1,988 | Jaroslav Soukup | Crime, Comedy | 4.8 | 12 | Czech | A young waiter named Michal gets into trouble when he is robbed of his daily takings, which he was supposed to deliver to the bank. He's on probation, so it's clear that no one trusts him. So he asks for help from a friend, Tomáš, a taxi driver, who borrows from Adamec, a dangerous bellhop. By chance, the two friends manage to find out that his colleague Kadlec and his son-in-law, garage keeper Bures, who is a stolen car dealer, are involved in Michal's robbery. With the help of Michal's girlfriend Magda, they devise a scam to punish the extortionist boss and hand over the two seemingly blameless scoundrels Kadlec and Bures to the police with the evidence. |
| The Matches of a Beautiful Dragoon | 1,971 | Jiří Sequens | Comedy, Crime | 4.8 | 10 | Czech | In a suburban villa, a woman of means is murdered. Police Superintendent Zdychynec from the Prague Liben neighborhood reports the case to Police Councilman Vacátko, upon whose order an investigation is launched immediately. Zdychynec begins to suspect the wooer of his own daughter, a handsome dragoon named Rudi, of the crime. In Rudi's absence, Zdychynec searches his rented room in the apartment of the elegant Mrs Dragicová. All his findings - among others, sand left on Rudi's jackboots and a decent amount of money in his bedside table - convince the superintendent that he is following the right lead, especially when Rudi refuses to say where he was at the time of the murder. |
| Mr. Prokouk: A Horseshoe for Luck | 1,946 | Karel Zeman | Animation, Comedy | 4.8 | 10 | Czech | Mr. Prokouk finds a horseshoe and thinks it's a good luck charm. So, he decides to take it with him home and find a suitable place for it. He soon discovers that the horseshoe brings him nothing but bad luck. |
| And Give My Love to the Swallows | 1,972 | Jaromil Jireš | Drama | 4.7 | 10 | Czech | This film, chronicling the last days of Czech resistance fighter Maruska Kuderikova (played by Magda Vasaryova), is based on her diaries. Though she was tortured and eventually executed by the Nazis, her diaries indicate that she was optimistic for the humanity of her captors and did not by any means hate them. Told with simple dignity, this film makes clear why Maruska became a national hero. |
| Shades of Fern | 1,986 | František Vláčil | Drama, Crime | 4.6 | 11 | Czech | Based on the only extensive prose work by the surrealist painter Josef Capek, Shades of Fern most resembles the philosophical fairy tales and fables of Josef’s older brother, the legendary Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek. Two young poachers, more boys than men, kill a gamekeeper when they are caught illegally hunting. Panicked, they retreat into a forest that grows steadily more forbidding and deadly as their fear for the future—and guilt over their action—mounts. Loosely based on hundreds of oral folk tales and legends that haunt the woods of Czechoslovakia, Vlácil’s contemporary updating artistically underscores the relationship between man and nature, crime and punishment, isolation and society, and guilt and memory. |
| The Very Late Afternoon of a Faun | 1,984 | Věra Chytilová | Comedy | 4.5 | 10 | Czech | A bachelor named Faun with a Don Juan complex, seized with a hypochondriac's fear of the ineluctable approach of death, enters a race against time's passage. Faun's sexual love is imbued with the narcissistic vanity of a self-satisfied bacchant who even towards old age can't manage to forgo his lifelong pose as an irresistable seducer of women. He desperately searches for meaning in superficial, fleeting sex. |
| Visitors from the Galaxy | 1,981 | Dušan Vukotić | Science Fiction, Comedy, Horror | 4.3 | 23 | SH | Robert is a SF writer, who realizes that he can make his thoughts material. Because of that, a group of aliens arrives to Earth. Their leader is Andra, who shows affection for Robert, which does not please his girlfriend, Biba. A monster, Mumu, has arrived together with the visitors from space. |
| The Seventh Day, the Eighth Night | 1,990 | Evald Schorm | Drama, Mystery | 4 | 10 | Czech | An allegory set in an archetypal Czech village, it tells the story of what happens when a series of mysterious events take place, including the disappearance of the station master. While everything has a rational explanation, collective paranoia takes over and everyone's worst instincts are unleashed. Interrogations, disenfranchisement, and the search for scapegoats ultimately lead to murder. The movie was completed in 1969, but it was banned and not released till 1990, Evald Schorm who died in 1988 never saw it completed. |
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