The 1960s were a moment of extraordinary cultural flowering in Czechoslovakia. After the rigid socialist realism of the 1950s, Czech filmmakers suddenly had creative freedom. A generation of young directors, trained in the Soviet tradition but inspired by French New Wave aesthetics, European modernism, and their own national history, produced a body of work that profoundly influenced world cinema. Films like Closely Watched Trains, The Firemen’s Ball, Daisies, Loves of a Blonde, and The Shop on Main Street emerged from Prague and Czechoslovakia between roughly 1963 and 1968, creating a brief moment when Czechoslovak cinema was at the absolute forefront of world cinema innovation.
This moment was crushed. In August 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague to suppress the Prague Spring—the liberalization movement led by Alexander Dubček. The brief window of creative freedom slammed shut. Filmmakers were censored, exiled, or silenced. The Czech New Wave ended as abruptly as it had begun, leaving behind a relatively small but enormously influential body of work.
The Context: The Prague Spring and Cultural Flourishing
To understand Czech cinema of the 1960s, you must understand the Prague Spring. In January 1968, Alexander Dubček became First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Unlike his predecessors, Dubček advocated for “socialism with a human face”—liberalization within the communist system, greater freedom of expression, more democratic governance.
For eight months, Czechoslovak society experienced unprecedented openness. Newspapers published criticism of the government. Writers, filmmakers, and artists were suddenly free to create without constant censorship. Civil society organizations emerged. Intellectuals debated politics publicly. It was, in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, genuinely revolutionary.
This liberalization had been emerging since the early 1960s. The film industry, in particular, had benefited from loosening censorship. By the early 1960s, Czech filmmakers were producing innovative, formally experimental, and thematically bold films that departed radically from socialist realism’s prescriptions.
Then, in August 1968, Soviet tanks arrived. The Prague Spring was crushed militarily. Dubček was removed from power. Hardline communists re-imposed strict censorship. The cultural flourishing ended. Many filmmakers emigrated (Miloš Forman was among them, eventually reaching Hollywood). Others remained and worked under increasingly restrictive conditions.
The Key Films: A Rapid-Fire Genius
The Czech New Wave produced several masterpieces in rapid succession.
Closely Watched Trains (Ostre sledované vlaky) — 1966
Jiří Menzel’s Closely Watched Trains is a gentle, funny, and poignant film about a railway station in occupied Bohemia during WWII. The protagonist is a young railway worker who gradually becomes involved in resistance activity. The film balances humor (the young man’s sexual coming-of-age subplot is treated with bemused affection) with historical gravity (the WWII setting and Nazi occupation).
The film is modernist in structure—it jumps in time, uses silence and empty space meaningfully, treats drama and comedy as simultaneous—but never in a way that alienates the audience. It’s innovative filmmaking in service of human storytelling. The result is a film that works simultaneously as entertainment and as formal experimentation.
Closely Watched Trains won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1968, introducing the Czech New Wave to international audiences just as it was being suppressed at home.
The Firemen’s Ball (Hasiči na nástupišti) — 1967
Miloš Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball (also known as Hair Ball of the Firemen) is a darkly comic film about a small-town firemen’s ball that descends into chaos and reveal of human pettiness and selfishness. The film has almost no plot; instead, it offers a series of comic vignettes revealing character and social dynamics.
Forman’s approach is anthropological—he observes human behavior with bemused detachment, neither praising nor condemning, simply documenting. The firemen are neither heroes nor villains; they’re ordinary people navigating social rituals, revealing their desires and limitations in the process.
The film was controversial in Czechoslovakia for its implicit critique of social institutions (the fire department stands in for communist bureaucracy) and its refusal to offer inspirational messaging. It premiered after the Prague Spring had begun, finding an audience that appreciated its honesty.
Daisies (Sedmikrásky) — 1966
Věra Chytilová’s Daisies is the most formally radical of the Czech New Wave films. The film, about two young women’s rebellion against social constraint, is a explosion of color, rapid editing, jump cuts, overlapping images, and anarchic energy.
Daisies is deliberately disorienting. The film’s form mirrors its content—the young women’s rejection of linear narrative reflects their rejection of linear social expectation. The film is technically innovative (heavy use of color, manipulation of film stock, non-naturalistic editing) and thematically transgressive (the women steal, lie, seduce older men, and ultimately destroy a fancy restaurant in an act of anarchic rebellion).
The film was banned immediately after the Soviet invasion of 1968. Chytilová was forbidden from filmmaking for years. But Daisies remained, and remains, a masterpiece of cinematic rebellion—form and content perfectly aligned in their rejection of constraint.
The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze) — 1965
Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos’ The Shop on Main Street is a Slovak-Czech co-production about an elderly Jewish widow and the Aryan businessman placed in her shop as “Aryanizer” during the Nazi occupation. The film is a gentle tragicomedy that gradually darkens, ultimately becoming a reflection on complicity and the nature of evil.
The film’s brilliance lies in its refusal of easy moralism. The businessman is not a villain; he’s an ordinary man trying to navigate impossible circumstances. His gradual awareness of his complicity in the persecution of Jews is painful, and his ultimate act of defiance comes too late. The film suggests that evil flourishes not through grand villainy, but through ordinary people’s moral compromises.
Loves of a Blonde (Lásky jedné plavovlsky) — 1965
Miloš Forman’s Loves of a Blonde is a romantic comedy about a young woman’s romantic and sexual coming-of-age. The film treats sex and desire with humor and tenderness, shocking both conservative Czechoslovak audiences and Western audiences accustomed to more restrained approaches to sexuality in cinema.
The film’s approach to narrative is loose—plot matters less than the observation of character and the creation of mood. Forman’s camera observes rather than directs. Characters move through space naturally. Dialogue is naturalistic. The result feels more like life than like a constructed narrative.
The Formal Innovations: What Made the Czech New Wave New
What united these diverse films was a shared set of formal innovations:
- Anti-narrative structure: Traditional three-act dramatic structures gave way to episodic narratives, observational approaches, or fragmented structures.
These innovations, drawing from both Soviet cinema traditions (montage, social focus) and European modernism (French New Wave, Italian neorealism), created something distinctive—formally adventurous but emotionally direct.
Miloš Forman: From Prague to Hollywood
Miloš Forman’s trajectory represents the Czech New Wave’s larger trajectory. Forman was trained in Prague, worked as a director at the Barrandov Studios, and achieved international success with The Firemen’s Ball and Loves of a Blonde in the mid-1960s.
After 1968, Forman emigrated to America. He adapted his observational, humanist approach to American subjects, directing Taking Off (1971), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984), and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). All of these films bear the mark of Forman’s Czech training—they observe human behavior with compassion and humor, they value ensemble performances, they avoid easy sentimentality.
Forman’s success demonstrates both the Czech New Wave’s influence on world cinema and the tragedy of its suppression. A filmmaker of genius was forced to leave his country to continue his career. Dozens of other talented filmmakers faced similar fates.
After 1968: The New Wave’s Suppression
The Prague Spring’s suppression had immediate consequences for Czech cinema. The government re-imposed censorship. Filmmakers who had been celebrated were suddenly forbidden from working. The innovative formal techniques that had been permitted became evidence of ideological unreliability.
Some filmmakers adapted, finding ways to make films under censorship. Some emigrated. Some gave up filmmaking entirely. The extraordinary moment of creative freedom lasted less than a decade but left a permanent mark on world cinema.
Czech Cinema’s Post-1989 Resurgence
After communism’s collapse in 1989, Czech cinema experienced another period of creative flourishing. Filmmakers who had been silenced resumed working. A new generation of younger filmmakers emerged. The 1990s and 2000s produced important films addressing both recent history (communism, the Velvet Revolution) and universal human themes.
This post-1989 renaissance has continued, though the Czech film industry faces challenges common to all European film industries—competition from Hollywood, changing audience preferences toward streaming, the economic difficulties of independent filmmaking.
Where to Experience Czech Cinema History
For visitors interested in Czech cinema, Prague offers several opportunities:
The National Film Archive (Národní filmový archiv)
The Czech National Film Archive, located in Prague, maintains the country’s most comprehensive collection of Czech cinema. The archive hosts screenings, exhibitions, and educational programs. While not all screenings are open to tourists, major exhibitions and retrospectives are often accessible.
Visiting Information: The archive is located in Prague’s Holešovice neighborhood. Check their website for current exhibitions and screening schedules. Major film festivals (particularly the Prague Film Festival) often feature retrospectives of Czech cinema classics.
Kino Lucerna
Kino Lucerna, located at Vodičkova 36 in Prague’s New Town, is one of Prague’s historic cinemas. It was founded in 1909 and has been operating continuously (with brief interruptions) since then. The cinema screens both contemporary films and classics, and occasionally features retrospectives of Czech cinema.
The cinema itself—its interior, its architecture, its role in Prague’s cultural history—is worth visiting independently of any specific screening. It represents the continuity of cinema culture in Prague across the 20th century and beyond.
FAMU: The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts
FAMU (Akademie múzických umění—Academy of Performing Arts) in Prague is where many Czech directors studied and where the tradition of Czech cinema is transmitted to new generations. While the school’s facilities aren’t open to casual tourists, the institution represents the ongoing vitality of Czech film education and practice.
Barrandov Studios
As discussed in a previous article, Barrandov Studios, where much Czech cinema (including New Wave films) was produced, offers guided tours providing insight into the infrastructure supporting Czech filmmaking.
The Czech New Wave’s Global Impact
The Czech New Wave’s influence on world cinema was disproportionate to its size. Films like Closely Watched Trains and The Shop on Main Street were seen at major international film festivals. They influenced filmmakers globally. The Czech New Wave demonstrated that cinema could be simultaneously experimental and humanist, formally innovative and emotionally direct.
The movement also demonstrated cinema’s power as a vehicle for national identity and resistance. In a country occupied and controlled by a foreign power, cinema became a means of expressing authentic Czech experience and values. The fact that the Prague Spring’s suppression led to the Czech New Wave’s suppression shows how seriously the Soviet authorities took cinema as an ideological and cultural force.
Accessing Czech New Wave Films Today
Several of the Czech New Wave’s key films are available on home video formats (DVD, Blu-ray) with English subtitles. Streaming services occasionally feature these films. Major film festivals sometimes program retrospectives. For serious engagement with the Czech New Wave, seeking out these films is worthwhile.
The films reward careful viewing. They’re not always immediately accessible—their formal innovations and gentle pacing can seem slow to audiences raised on contemporary fast-cut cinema. But patience reveals extraordinary sophistication and depth.
Conclusion: A Moment of Genius, Permanently Lost and Permanently Remembered
The Czech New Wave lasted roughly five years (1963-1968). In that brief window, Czechoslovak cinema produced films of extraordinary quality and influence. Then the window closed, violently and suddenly.
Yet the Czech New Wave endures. The films remain, accessible to new audiences. The influence on world cinema persists—filmmakers continue to learn from Czech New Wave innovations. And the movement’s history—its emergence from political liberalization, its suppression by foreign military force—ensures that it remains culturally significant beyond its cinematic merits.
For visitors to Prague, the Czech New Wave is invisible (the films aren’t screened in major public venues) yet omnipresent (the city itself is filmed in many of these movies, and the cultural memory of the movement shapes how Prague understands itself). Walking through Prague, you’re walking through the city where these masterpieces were created, where the Prague Spring unfolded, where cinema and history intersected in ways that continue to resonate.
The tragedy is that the Czech New Wave was cut short. We’ll never know what Věra Chytilová might have created with decades of continued creative freedom. We’ll never see the films Miloš Forman might have made in Prague had 1968 turned out differently. But what remains—the films completed before the suppression—constitutes a permanent contribution to world cinema and a permanent testimony to a moment when creative freedom and political liberation briefly coincided, and art flourished in that convergence.
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