Curious about Czech film? Below, you’ll find a list of some of our favorites. You can find all of them at DVD Planet (www.dvdplanet.cz) with English subtitles.

Accumulator 1 (1994)
Director: Jan Sverak
This weirdo Czech flick follows the non-adventures of a severely depressed dude who seems to have a deranged counterpart in some distant spirit world. An older healer must help him rediscover the joys of life – nature, art, people, and sex. As long as he can stay away from the television set, he should be fine – it’s the television that sucks energy from people and contributes to their downfall. Uh-huh.

Ambiguous Report About the End of the World (1997)
Director: Juraj Jakubisko
Jakubisko’s epic masterpiece is set in a tiny village in the mountains on the edge of the world. Over the course of twenty-five years, we follow the evolution of various generations, but the main plot follows the fatal love affair of Verona and Goran. Their passionate relationship transcends all boundaries, and therefore they are punished by the forces of nature.

Angel Exit (2000)
Director: Vladimir Michalek
Based on the writings of novelist-poet Jachym Topol, Angel Exit is a hallucinatory tale of junkies, dealers, and gangsters centered around the Andel metro station, which until they built the big shopping mall was a pretty scuzzy area.

Bored in Brno (2003)
Director: Vladimir Moravek
A sweet comedy set in the Czech Republic’s second city about two young people eager to lose their virginity to one another. The fact that they are both retards only adds to the general confusion.

Calamity (1981)
Director: Vera Chytilova
Made by maverick director Vera Chytilova in the early ‘80s and immediately banned by the Communists for its realistic depiction of railway workers, Calamity nevertheless launched the career of famed comic actor Boleslav Polivka.

Choking Hazard (2004)
Director: Marek Dobes
What happens when Czechs try to make a zombie movie? Choking Hazard…a horror comedy that will most likely repulse you with its weak stabs at comic relief. Still, it’s interesting from a sociological perspective, I suppose.

Coal Tower (2002)
Director: Milan Steindler
Teenage drama about addiction, love, and death in modern day Prague. Jacob and his best friend decide to take revenge on the dealer they believe is responsible for the death of Vera, Jacob’s life-long love. His search for truth and vengeance ends in a major surprise.

The Cremator (1968)
Director: Juraj Herz
This incredibly creepy film is a prime example of what they call the “Czech grotesque.” It centers around a cremator who, during World War II, will do anything to advance his career – even if it means sacrificing his own family.

Daisies (1966)
Director: Vera Chytilova
Vera Chytilova’s surreal masterpiece follows the adventures of two young girls who decide that, since life is meaningless, they might as well misbehave. The result is an incredibly deranged picture.

Dirty Soul (2005)
Director: Milan Cieslar
A mosaic of three interrelated stories about two sisters and their oldest stepbrother, all of whom are seeking love in a harsh, cruel world. All of the characters are played with a cynical exaggeration, which can get annoying at times. But it nevertheless provides interesting insights into the dirty Czech soul.

Greedy Guts (Little Otík) (2001)
Director: Jan Svankmajer
The award-winning film by famed Surrealist Jan Svankmajer is based on a classic Czech fairy tale about a woman who wants a baby more than anything. What she gets is a baby carved out of wood with an appetite for human blood…You can imagine what happens next.

Horem Pádem (2004)
Director: Jan Hrebejk
One of the most popular Czech films on the international scene in recent years, Horem Padem reveals what happens when a baby is found by a couple of low-life smugglers. An excellent tragicomedy set in modern-day Prague.

The Inheritance (1993)
Director: Vera Chytilova
Perhaps one of the greatest Czech comedies of all time, The Inheritance reveals what happens when a village redneck finds out he’s inherited almost half of Prague from a distant father after the Velvet Revolution.

Kolya (1996)
Director: Jan Sverak
Winner of an Oscar for Best Foreign Film (and much more successful than Sverak’s earlier effort, Accumulator 1), Kolya is set in communist Czechoslovakia of the 1980s and follows a grumpy middle-aged bachelor who winds up having to look after a five-year-old Russian boy when his mother skips town.

Loners (2000)
Director: David Ondricek
One of the most popular Czech films among the younger set, Loners is set in modern day Prague and follows the lives of seven twentysomethings, all trying to figure out the meaning of life while attempting to maintain “serious” relationships with one another. Perhaps a bit overrated, but essential viewing, nonetheless.

My Sweet Little Village (1985)
Director: Jiri Menzel
A sweet portrait of Czechoslovak village life from one of the country’s greatest directors, My Sweet Little Village follows the life of a truck driver who must deal with his frustrating partner, the village idiot.

Pupendo (2003)
Director: Jan Hrebejk
Pupendo won wide acclaim among nostalgists for its portrayal of life in Czechoslovakia during the last decade of Communist rule. Definitely one of the more accessible Czech films for foreigners.

Snowboarders (2004)
Director: Karel Janak
American-style teenage comedy about two young guys who want to learn how to snowboard – but what they really want, of course, is to get laid. Somehow they manage to do both, despite all the trials and tribulations thrown in their way.

Whisper (1996)
Director: David Ondricek
David Ondricek’s exploration of restless Prague youth was one of the top-grossing Czech films of the 1990s. A young country bumpkin runs away from her family to the big city, Prague, where she falls in with a group of friends sharing an apartment. Two of the five main characters are gay, and it treats their romantic and erotic problems with dignity, as part of a greater problem of general sexual identity being suffered by the male lead. A nice survey of the contemporary Prague youth scene.

The Wild Bees (2001)
Director: Bohdan Slama
Comedies about Czech village life form a subgenre of their own, and The Wild Bees depicts the Moravian side of things. Life seems to revolve around 1.) doing nothing, and 2.) going to the bar. Includes a stellar performance by Pavel Liska as a Michael Jackson impersonator.

Year of the Devil (2001)
Director: Petr Zelenka
In this bizarre combination of documentary and fiction, a Czech folk singer hopes that a band of funeral musicians will help cure him of his alcoholism. Throw in Killing Joke frontman (and Prague resident) Jaz Coleman into the mix, and you have one of the most talked-about films of the new millennium.

Zelary (2003)
Director: Ondrej Trojan
Featuring an all-star cast of some of the best living Czech and Hungarian actors, Zelary is about a woman who must hide out from the Gestapo in a small mountain town during the Second World War.


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