My top 50 Czech movies

After coming home from a Party gathering one night, a Czech official becomes convinced that he is about to be the subject of a political purge and tries to do damage control, while also dealing with his turbulent marriage.

Set in Central Europe during World War II, a demented cremator believes cremation relieves earthly suffering and sets out to save the world.

A film that examines the relationships between lives on both sides of the proscenium, Petr Zelenka's Karamazovi finds a Prague-based theatrical ensemble arriving in Krakow, Poland - where its members prepare to mount a stage production of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

Two families, Sebkovi and Krausovi, are celebrating Christmas, but not everyone is in a good mood. Teenage kids think their fathers are totally stupid; fathers are sure their children are nothing more than rebels, hating anything they say.

Various scenes in the life of a tight-knit community in Czech village exploring the human spirit in the backdrop of the post-war political changes they experience.

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.

A lawyer named Radosta organizes a complex 12-way apartment swap meeting at retired singer Bílek's flat, calling it "the lightning ball." Various complications arise during the process.

A volunteer fire department throws a party for their former boss with the whole town invited, but nothing goes as planned.

This movie is based on texts of Bohumil Hrabal, world-known Czech prosaic. It's a story (in a form of a mosaic of short episodes and pictures) about the sadness and happiness of inhabitants of Kersko (Kersko is a small woody area full of cottages and roods). These people are both simple and sensitive, they have their own pleasures (e.g. Leli is a collector of cheap, but inutile things) and the greatest delight of all of them is a hunting. Crude poetics of amateur hunting is screened by dreamy pictures of this area. Menzel mixes sentimental lyricism and rough (but not vulgar!) humor and the outcome is the never-ending landscape of continuous life in the proximate nearness of nature. The performances of actors are brilliant. Both Rudolf Hrusinsky as a Franz and Jaromír Hanzlik as a Leli have nonrecurring charm bottomed on a pain and inebriation. Only the music is not perfect: Jiri Sust usually assembled his film music from his older works and in this movie there is many quotations.

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.

Life changes dramatically for a Czech housemaid when the family coachman gives her three magical hazelnuts.

The story of High school in Czechia (then Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia) during occupation by Nazi Germany, where three students are arrested by Gestapo.

The life of a small village runs on its own.

Older group of workers are forced to attend the high school and finish it.

Set in the late 1940s, the film concerns the treatment of suspect "bourgeois elements", a professor, a saxophonist, and a milkman, who are put to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation.

Straight shooting Lemonade Joe cleans up Stetson City, in this musical parody of early Westerns, after shooting the pants off villain Old Pistol. Joe's endorsement of Kolaloka Lemonade as the refresher that assures deadly aim, convinces the Arizona sin town to abstain from alcohol. But Trigger Whiskey maker Duke Badman's brother, the devious gunslinger Hogofogo, comes to save his sibling's saloon from Joe's allies, father and daughter temperance revivalists, the Goodmans. Based on famous Czech parody novel from the 1940s and its various stage adaptations.

Seven young adults from Prague, experience events that will change their future lives.

Skopec, Prouza and Petrtýl are three country plasterers who are working on the renovation of houses in Prague. They are tempted by the Prague night life, but their first visit to the luxury Diplomat Grill doesn't go too well and in the end they have to escape. But they refuse to give up. They have superior suits made for themselves and pay for training in social graces from the former dance teacher Dvorský. When Dvorský decides that they are already sufficiently well educated, the men set off again for the Diplomat Grill. Here they meet three young girls. They have no suspicion that these are girls of rather easy virtue, who are looking for rich men in the Diplomat Grill with a view to fleecing them.

An apprentice train dispatcher looks for love while aiding his colleagues in their resistance against the Nazis.

A confirmed bachelor is in for the surprise of his life when a get-rich-quick scheme backfires and leaves him with a pint-sized new roommate.

Story about an anti-alcohol treatment center. A diverse company gathered here - the educated and stoker Lexa, the unsuccessful painter Ament, the history professor Zlámal, the parish priest Dorenda, the waiter Ctvrtecka and the actor Smok. They all struggle with the demon of alcohol, they experience their little joys and sorrows in separation. They hate the despotic head nurse Masák and his "experimental" treatment methods. Only Lexa, a brawler and a fighter for not only his own rights, but also those of others, can stand up to him.

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 just. His weakness is his interest in young women.

Mrs Müllerova (E. Svobodova) informs her tenant Svejk (R. Hrusinsky) about the recent assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Svejk heads out to the local pub unaware that a secret police agent is also in there spying on people who talk about political subjects. After foolishly talking to the agent Svejk gets arrested for treason but soon after gets released on the account of being deemed officially stupid. Despite suffering from rheumatism Svejk decides to enlist in the army...

The white gravestones at the military cemetery in English Brookwood display many Czech names. These were members of the British army of Czech origin who fought here and died for their homeland in the Second World War. The cries of the wounded and dying shift the story a quarter-century back. The crew of one of the bombers is composed of a Slovak captain, Pavel (Svatopluk Matyás), an English co-pilot and navigator, a Canadian radioman and a pair of Czech gunners, nicknamed Student (Jirí Bednár) and Shorty (Jirí Hrzán).