60 Years Later, These Czech Films Still Hit Harder Than Most of What's Streaming Right Now
The Movement That Changed Cinema (And Got Banned For It)
Imagine a group of young filmmakers so good, so bold, and so politically inconvenient that the government eventually banned their work entirely. That's essentially what happened in Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s. The Czech New Wave — a loose but unmistakable creative movement that flourished between roughly 1963 and 1968 — produced a body of work that stunned international audiences, swept major film festivals, and made Hollywood take notice. Then the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 brought the whole thing crashing down.
Decades later, these films are being rediscovered by a new generation of viewers, many of them American, who are stumbling onto them through streaming platforms and coming away genuinely shaken. Not because the films are heavy or difficult — though some are — but because they're so alive. So funny and strange and human.
If you haven't explored Czech New Wave cinema yet, consider this your invitation. Here at CzechVideo, it's basically required viewing.
What Made the Czech New Wave Different
The Czech New Wave didn't emerge in a vacuum. It grew out of a specific cultural and political moment — a brief thaw in Communist-era Czechoslovakia that allowed artists slightly more creative freedom than they'd had before. Young graduates from FAMU, Prague's legendary film school, seized that opening and ran with it.
What they made was unlike anything coming out of Hollywood at the time, and honestly unlike much of what European art cinema was doing either. Czech New Wave films have a quality that's hard to pin down — a blend of absurdist humor, quiet tragedy, and unflinching observation of everyday life that feels both deeply specific to its time and place and somehow universally recognizable.
They were also technically adventurous. Handheld cameras, non-professional actors, improvised dialogue, non-linear narratives — the Czech New Wave was doing things that American indie cinema wouldn't catch up to for another two decades.
The Essential Watchlist
Closely Watched Trains (1966) — Jiří Menzel
Where to stream: Criterion Channel, Mubi
This is probably the best entry point for New Wave newcomers. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1968, Closely Watched Trains follows a young railway worker coming of age during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. But describing it that way makes it sound heavier than it is. The film is frequently hilarious, deeply tender, and sneaks up on you with its emotional gut-punch of an ending.
Director Jiří Menzel had a gift for finding comedy and warmth in the darkest circumstances, and this film shows that talent at its peak. For American audiences used to WWII films that are either solemn Oscar bait or action spectacles, Closely Watched Trains is a genuine revelation.
The Firemen's Ball (1967) — Miloš Forman
Where to stream: Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Before Miloš Forman directed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus and became one of Hollywood's most celebrated filmmakers, he was making wickedly funny satires in Czechoslovakia. The Firemen's Ball is his masterpiece from this period — a seemingly simple story about a small-town fire department's disastrously chaotic awards banquet that's actually a razor-sharp takedown of bureaucratic incompetence and collective self-delusion.
The Communist authorities reportedly hated it. Forman insisted it was just a comedy about firemen. The fact that it works brilliantly on both levels is a testament to how good he was. This one is pure fun from start to finish, and it translates across cultural lines effortlessly.
Daisies (1966) — Věra Chytilová
Where to stream: Criterion Channel, Mubi
If you want something genuinely unlike anything else you've ever seen, Daisies is your film. Directed by Věra Chytilová — one of the few women at the center of the Czech New Wave — it follows two young women named Marie who decide that since the world is spoiled, they might as well be too. What follows is a gleefully anarchic, visually experimental, proto-feminist romp that feels like it was made last year rather than in 1966.
Daisies was banned almost immediately after its release. Modern audiences, particularly younger viewers who've grown up on surrealist internet humor, often respond to it with immediate recognition. It's chaotic and joyful and kind of brilliant.
The Shop on Main Street (1965) — Ján Kadár & Elmar Klos
Where to stream: Criterion Channel, Kanopy
The emotional heavyweight of this list. The Shop on Main Street won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1966 and tells the story of a Slovak carpenter who is appointed the "Aryan controller" of a Jewish widow's button shop during the Nazi occupation. It's a film about complicity, cowardice, and the small moral choices that define us under pressure — themes that, unfortunately, haven't aged out of relevance.
This one will wreck you. But it's worth it.
Loves of a Blonde (1965) — Miloš Forman
Where to stream: Criterion Channel
Another Forman entry, because two of his Czech films are essential. Loves of a Blonde is quieter and more intimate than The Firemen's Ball — a simple story about a young factory worker who falls for a visiting musician and follows him to Prague, only to find reality considerably less romantic than her expectations. It's funny, melancholy, and achingly real. Forman shot it with non-professional actors and improvised much of the dialogue, and the result feels like a documentary that somehow also breaks your heart.
Why American Audiences Are Rediscovering These Films Now
Streaming has done something interesting for world cinema. When you're scrolling through Criterion Channel or Mubi at midnight looking for something different, a 1966 Czech film is suddenly just as accessible as the latest Netflix original. The barrier to entry has collapsed.
And what American viewers are finding when they click on these films is that they hold up — not just as historical artifacts, but as genuinely entertaining, moving, and often hilarious pieces of cinema. The humor in particular travels well. Czech dark comedy has a sensibility that resonates with American audiences who've grown up on shows like Arrested Development or films by the Coen Brothers — that same combination of deadpan absurdism and genuine pathos.
There's also a political resonance that feels newly relevant. Films made under an authoritarian system, using humor and oblique storytelling to say things that couldn't be said directly, have a particular appeal in an era when many Americans are thinking harder about the relationship between art and power.
Where to Start
If you're new to Czech New Wave, start with The Firemen's Ball or Closely Watched Trains — both are accessible, funny, and immediately engaging. If you want to go deeper, Daisies will blow your mind, and The Shop on Main Street will remind you why cinema matters.
All of these films are available through legal streaming platforms, and Criterion Channel in particular has done an outstanding job building out their Czech New Wave collection. You can also find several titles on Kanopy, which is free with most US library cards — so there's literally no excuse.
At CzechVideo, we exist to connect American audiences with the best of Czech film and culture. And it doesn't get much better than this. Start watching.