Best Czech drama movies
Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch drama films from Czechia, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!
The Bourne Identity 2002
Wounded to the brink of death and suffering from amnesia, Jason Bourne is rescued at sea by a fisherman. With nothing to go on but a Swiss bank account number, he starts to reconstruct his life, but finds that many people he encounters want him dead. However, Bourne realizes that he has the combat and mental skills of a world-class spy—but who does he work for?
80Cosy Dens 1999
Two families, Sebkovi and Krausovi, are celebrating Christmas, but not everyone is in a good mood. The teenage kids think that their fathers are totally stupid, and the fathers are sure that their children are nothing more than rebels, hating anything they say.
85The Painted Bird 2019
After losing his parents, a young Jewish boy wanders Eastern Europe, seeking refuge during World War II.
74Kolya 1996
After a fictitious marriage with a Russian emigrant, Cellisten Louka, a Czech man, must suddenly take responsibility for her son. However, it’s not long before the communication barrier is broken between the two new family members.
77Charlatan 2020
Born in the early 20th century, herbalist Jan Mikolasek became rich and famous after curing countless diseases with unorthodox means. A true emblem of Czechoslovakia before World War II, the healer became even more appreciated during the Nazi occupation and the communist regime. Each regime appreciates his skill and protects him. But how much will it cost him to maintain his status in a new political change?
71Waves 2024
At the end of the 1960s, when the air is filled with rock-and-roll and student rebellions are changing the world, the older of two brothers joins a prestigious newsroom of the public radio broadcaster. Not long after, he finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conflict between journalists and the secret service.
80Fatherland 1994
Fictional account of what might have happened if Hitler had won the war. It is now the 1960s and Germany's war crimes have so far been kept a secret. Hitler wants to talk peace with the US president. An American journalist and a German homicide cop stumble into a plot to destroy all evidence of the genocide.
64Owners 2019
Mrs. Zahrádková has a plan to convince the other co-owners of the flats to finally save the house in which they live together and which is in emergency condition.
73The Teacher 2016
The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. Drazděchová uses her students to manipulate their parents.
73Bathory: Countess of Blood 2008
Bathory is based on the legends surrounding the life and deeds of Countess Elizabeth Bathory known as the greatest murderess in the history of mankind. Contrary to popular belief, Elizabeth Bathory was a modern Renaissance woman who ultimately fell victim to men’s aspirations for power and wealth.
59Terrorist 2019
Mária, a retired teacher, one fine day decides she no longer wants to feel like a cow, and when not even the mayor helps her against the arrogant source of local evil, she obtains a gun and resolves to do what most of us occasionally think of but immediately banish from our minds. Very soon, however, she discovers that just as murder is morally complex, it is equally complex logistically, despite her former pupil, now on probation, offering her this priceless life advice: “Crime only looks simple, Mrs. Teacher, but then something always goes to shit.”
71Her Body 2023
A Czech high diver's Olympic dreams are shattered when she suffers a devastating injury while training. Forced to leave the sport she loves, she follows a photographer friend into the world of nude modeling, ultimately reinventing herself as an adult film actress. Inspired by the true story of diving champion Andrea Absolonová.
59I, Olga Hepnarova 2016
Olga is a complex young woman desperate to break free from her unfeeling family and social conventions. With her Louise Brooks-like tomboyish looks she drags herself, chain-smoking, from one job to another until she appears to find her niche as a truck driver. Although she has female lovers she does not form a bond with any of them; instead she clashes, time and again, venting herself in wordless emotional outbursts and other behavioural extremes.
69Barefoot 2017
Story of a small boy is forced to move out of Prague during World War 2 to a small village of Slavonice where he meets the rest of his family. He needs to make new friends and get used to a new life which is immensely different from what this city boy was used to.
69The Devil's Mistress 2016
Salzburg, Germany, 2000. The elderly Czech actress Lída Baarová tells a journalist the tumultuous story of her rise to fame in 1930s Berlin and her passionate relationship with the sinister Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda of the Third Reich.
64Loners 2000
Robert works for a travel agency and helps to arrange scenes from the everyday lives of "ordinary" Czech families as an attraction for Japanese tourists. He also works as a kind of matchmaker and occasionally helps to put together some of his friends. He helps to separate his friend Hanka from Peter, an announcer for an independent radio station who tries to capture "real" life by recording the moments from "reality" and playing them over the air. Vesna, came to Prague from Macedonia because it is according to her the best place for UFOs to land, but her real reason for coming is somewhat different... Hanka is followed by the crazy Ondrej, until then a respected brain surgeon, and married with two kids. Through him she meets Jacob, who uses copious amounts of weed in order to be constructive in this gloomy world. On the other hand, this destroys his short-term memory - and he forgets that he already has a girlfriend...
78Tiger Theory 2016
The last drop for Jan's resolution is the voluntary death of his father-in-law, whose strength and patience ran dry. Grandma made decisions about Grandpa's life, old age as well as the funeral. Jan is sure that he and his wife Olga are on the same route. He recalls his past life when he used to have his own will and dreams and he wants to live again with dignity and freedom. He longs to control his own life again. And his solution is escape from the present life. In this movie we watch, in parallel ,the fates of Jan's married daughters Olinka and Alenka and his sons-in-law Erik and Pepík.
76Gangster Ka 2015
A film based on a book by Jaroslav Kmenta tells the story of a mafioso who got rich by tax fraud of billions of crowns in transactions with petroleum products and who later tried to gain control of the state-owned petroleum concern. The main character is the gangster Radim Kraviec (Hynek Cermák). He was always capable of violence, but when his father is abducted and killed by a competing mafia, he is changed into a murdering monster.
72National Street 2019
Overwhelmed by a world he can no longer control, a quarrelsome worker in his fifties tries to preserve the integrity of his neighbourhood...
61Emergency Situation 2022
When a train unexpectedly changes directions, a group of eccentric passengers must work together to reach their destination safely.
65Brothers 2023
Based on the true story of brothers Josef and Ctirad Mašín who, in 1953, tried to escape communist Czechoslovakia to join the US army in West Berlin.
61Daughter 2019
A young girl buries in her soul a memory of a painful moment, when as a child she brought home an injured bird and her father burdened by his own weight of worries didn’t notice her feelings and longing for understanding. The girl took her father’s reaction as indifference and closed herself in her inner world longing for her father’s love and its manifestations. Since that moment she and her dad continued to grow apart, and as an adult she is no longer able to accept his endearments. The father suffers from guilt and searches for a way back to his daughter, trying to revive their lost relationship.
65On the Roof 2019
Situated in Prague, a 20-year-old Vietnamese named Song, hoped for a better future in Europe. But now in a Vietnamese district in Prague, he is trapped in a marijuana grow house and has life of a modern slave. Police rounds up the place. Song runs away on the rooftop of a condo building in a nearby district where he breaks down. Mr. Rypar (78) lives alone. He is fond of the old times, living in a strong opposition to modern world. Rypar goes up on the roof and meets Song standing on the very edge of the roof crying and the story begins.
73Gump 2021
A story told through the eyes of a stray dog called Gump . On a journey to find his way home to his owner, Gump encounters many challenges, meets new people, and makes a few canine friends along the way. A story about the devotion of a dog, who without hesitation will give his own life for the life of its beloved owner.
76Divided We Fall 2000
In 1943, a childless couple, the Čížeks, decide to hide a Jewish refugee, David Wiener, the son of Čížek's former employer, in the secret pantry of their apartment. Čížek is aware of the danger into which he has brought his household and his neighbours, but he takes helping his fellow man in need for granted. But at the same time, as a largely unheroic hero, he is dying of fear. His personal situation is greatly complicated by the approaching end of the war, when he faces danger from both the Germans and his "honest" fellow Czechs...
72Zátopek 2021
Autumn 1968, the Australian running record holder Ron Clarke is coming to Prague, hoping that his old friend and role model, Emil Zátopek, the most famous Czech athlete of all time, will help him overcome the biggest crisis of his career.
74Identity Card 2010
Bittersweet comedy about four teenage boys, their friends, parents, lovers - from the moment when they are 15 to moment when they are 18. Story is set in 1970s, when is Czechoslovakia occupied by Russians.
76Conspirators of Pleasure 1996
Six outwardly average individuals have elaborate fetishes they indulge with surreptitious care. A mousy letter carrier makes dough balls she grotesquely ingests before bed. A shop clerk fixates on a TV news reader while he builds a machine to massage and masturbate him. One of his customers makes an elaborate chicken costume for a voodoo-like scene with a doll resembling his plump neighbor. She, in turn, has a doll that resembles him, which she whips and dominates in an abandoned church. The TV news reader has her own fantasy involving carp. Her husband, who is indifferent to her, steals materials to fashion elaborate artifacts that he rubs, scrapes and rolls across his body.
69Droneman 2020
Droneman is about Chemist and Fly Navigator Pavel and his friend Bussinessman and free time Rapper Plech. Pavel has strong sense of justice and wishes to fix wrongs with the World while Plech dreams about Big money and secure life. Their common passion are Drones since School. Pavel returns from Foreign and meets again with Plech and together they use Drones to start Bussiness. They monitor Power Stations, wear luxury handbags at the show or spray the Petrin Tower from the air. Their clients even include Presidential candidate. Everything changes when one of them decides to misuse Drones.
67Ice Mother 2017
After her husband's death, Hana lives on alone in the family villa. Her two sons visit her with their families, but these visits frequently end in quarrels. When Hana meets Brona, a hardy fellow, inured to winter swimming, a new world opens before her. Brona's team-mates absorb her into their team and Hana gradually learns to overcome her fear of icy water. Her relation with Brona grows into love.
68A Prominent Patient 2017
In 1939, Czech diplomat Jan Masaryk flees to the United States to escape his recent past: Germany has invaded Czechoslovakia and he is now a man with no nation; because, as the Czechoslovak ambassador in London, he failed to win the support of the British and could not avert the fall of his country and the outbreak of the World War II.
74Gangster Ka: African 2015
After narrowly escaping arrest in Prague, Czech mobster Radim "Kácko" Kraviec flees first to Seychelles and then to South Africa where he continues with his criminal endeavours. However, his illicit activities cannot go unnoticed forever.
75Diary of an Alcoholic 2024
The feature film Diary of an Alcoholic tells the dramatic story of a young woman struggling with alcohol addiction. The main heroine (although she often does not act like a heroine) is a young mother who decided not to give up, to start treatment and to fight her demon and her family. How hard is it to admit a drinking problem? Why is not even a small child an obstacle to addiction? Where to get the strength to heal and what comes next? These and many other questions are answered by an authentic and honest cinematic confession of an abstinent alcoholic.
70The Butcher of Prague 2011
Czechoslovakia, 1941. As the war continues, Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich arrives in Nazi-occupied Prague and establishes a regime of terror that will force freedom fighters to act. But the price to pay will be too high.
71Pupendo 2003
Artist Bedřich Mára (Bolek Polivka) is unable to find much secure work due to his public antagonism toward the ruling Communist Party. He has a wife and two children. Life begins to change when art historian Alois Fábera (Jiři Pecha) begins working on a piece about Bedřich, leading to a job offer from a Party official. Things are looking up, until the wrong people hear portions of the historian's writing.
75Toman 2018
This fascinating historical drama looks at the life of "the Czech Schindler," Zdenek Toman, a controversial figure who was an unsavory politician and dubious entrepreneur, but also the savior of hundreds of Eastern European Jews.
72In the Shadow 2012
In the former Czechoslovakia, 1950s, police captain Hakl investigates a jewelry robbery. An opened safe deposit leads to a known burglar. What seems an easy case soon starts to tangle. When he is called off the case, he continues on his own. The investigation leads him onto thin ice. Can he beat a stronger enemy and save his family and his own life?
67Tátova volha 2018
Unexpectedly widowed costume designer Eva discovers a child's drawing that sends her and her daughter on a road trip to uncover a family secret.
69The Last Race 2022
In 1913, Czech skiing champion Bohumil Hanč perseveres alone in a fierce snowstorm during a race, collapses from exhaustion and exposure, and is found by his friend Emerich Rath, who risks his own life in a desperate rescue attempt. Tragically, Hanč succumbs to the elements, and shortly after his friend Václav Vrbata, who lent Hanč his coat, also perishes in the blizzard.
68Smiles of Sad Men 2018
A writer gets into a rehab where he meets a lot of successful men who destroyed their lives with alcohol.
69We Have Never Been Modern 2023
Helena, is about to give birth and face a rosy future in a modern city, as the pregnant wife of an important factory manager. However, all her illusions soon perish, as the dead body of a newborn intersex baby is found in the middle of their factory. Helena needs to find out what happened here for the safety of her own child, but she runs into her own prejudices.
70The Can 2007
This movie is about strange relationships in one "noname" gymnasium in Czech republic.
68Borders of Love 2022
After years together, Petr and Hana, partners in work and in life, share their unspoken erotic fantasies. What begins as an innocent conversation gradually turns into curious experimentation with a non-monogamous approach to their relationship. But sexual freedom tastes differently for each of them. Without resorting to exploitation, Tomasz Wiński’s feature debut considers questions that are taboo for many couples. Borders of Love explores not only various forms of intimacy but also ways of depicting it on the big screen, since, among others, the protagonists themselves film each other on their mobile phones. Appearing in the main roles are Matyáš Řezníček and Hana Vagnerová, who collaborated on the film’s story and script as well.
56Past 2020
In 1951, the well-known Czech actress Jiřina Štěpničková receives a letter from Austria from director František Čáp, who has recently emigrated. He invites her to the West and promises her roles in theater and film. She decides to seize the opportunity and flee. Together with a small group of people and her young son Jirka, she entrusts herself to a smuggler and embarks on a risky journey across the border. But something goes wrong. They are caught. Everything had been planned in advance. The smuggler himself is a member of the StB. But that's only the beginning.
67Fair Play 2014
In the 1980s, Anna, a Czech sprinter, starts training for the Olympics. After she collapses during training, she learns she is being given steroids and decides to stop using them until her mother helps the coaches give them to her.
68Okresní přebor – Poslední zápas Pepika Hnátka 2012
Based on the popular television series Okresní přebor. As the title suggests, the film features the legendary figure of licensed coach Josef Hnátek. Since this man appeared in the series only as ashes scattered on the Houslice football field, the filmmakers decided to introduce him to viewers in his living form. The story of the feature film is set during his lifetime and explores the dilemma of a man for whom football is his whole life. Even more than life itself. The title role of the Houslice personality will be played by theater director, artistic director of Prague's Dejvické Theater, and occasional actor Miroslav Krobot.
74Alois Nebel 2011
A train dispatcher encounters a mute stranger who appears out of nowhere, and finds himself mysteriously involved with a murder in Poland. The end of the eighties in the twentieth century. Alois Nebel works as a dispatcher at the small railway station in Bílý Potok, a remote village on the Czech–Polish border. He's a loner, who prefers old timetables to people, and he finds the loneliness of the station tranquil – except when the fog rolls in. Then he hallucinates, sees trains from the last hundred years pass through the station. They bring ghosts and shadows from the dark past of Central Europe. Alois can’t get rid of these nightmares and eventually ends up in sanatorium. In the sanatorium, he gets to know The Mute, a man carrying an old photograph who was arrested by the police after crossing the border. No one knows why he came to Bílý Potok or who he’s looking for, but it is his past that propels Alois on his journey…
62Metanol 2018
74Amnesty 2019
Inspired by true events of the 1989 Czech and Slovak Velvet Revolution and Václav Havel's controversial release of 23000 prisoners. In addition to the story of three families affected by communist persecution, the film Amnesty also deals with the uprising of prisoners in Leopoldov, which required military intervention. The uprising was preceded by a broad amnesty granted by Václav Havel in January 1990, just a few days after his election as Czechoslovak president.
70Banger. 2022
One night and a wad of cash he suddenly has to come up with quick. So he and his friend Láďa have to set out on a wild Friday odyssey full of cocaine and rap. The pursuit of fame and respect in the music scene slowly transforms into a desperate and dangerous attempt not to miss out on the chance of a lifetime. In their adrenaline-fueled ride through the nighttime streets of Prague the pair of friends are caught in a time crunch, teetering between a rap career and a moral choice which threatens the lives of dozens of young people.
57Old-Timers 2019
Vlasta and Tonda don't have much longer to live but they do have one more important task ahead of them - to find and kill the communist prosecutor who sent them to prison in the 1950s. An unusual road movie about two former political prisoners who fight for justice despite every obstacle.
64The Gardener's Year 2024
A devoted gardener and his wife live peacefully at the foot of a hill, tending their nursery according to nature’s rhythms. When a new castle owner seeks to transform the entire estate and demands they sell their garden business, the couple refuses. In response, the owner erects barbed-wire fences and places a guard at the entrance road…
64One Hand Can't Clap 2003
When Standa is released from jail, he feels a brighter future is about to take hold. Instead, his bad luck grows, thanks to a new acquaintance.
73Moře na dvoře 2025
Josef is a successful violin maker. He enjoys seeing the instruments he makes bring joy to people all over the world. He himself prefers to spend his time in his workshop in the courtyard of a tenement house. He has never been to the sea; his sea is a puddle in the courtyard, which he protects from drying out so that the birds have something to drink. He has no wife or children, only his dog Pampeliška, who accompanies him everywhere. Josef secretly loves his beautiful neighbor Anežka and looks forward to Wednesday chess games with his best friend Václav, a charismatic piano tuner.
81The Wonderful Years That Sucked 1997
Capturing the dark humor of Czech author Michal Viewegh's chronicle of life after the Velvet Revolution, this black comedy chronicles three decades in the life of a small Czech family. While the original novel centered on the protagonist Kvido from his conception through his adulthood, first time director Petr Nikolaev and screenwriter Jan Novak changed the focus to his parents Milena, an extremely self-effacing lawyer who acts on stage in her spare time, and Ales, a rather aimless government worker who tends to drift wherever the wind takes him. The lives of Ales and Milena change dramatically following the Russian invasion of Prague in 1968.
70Jan Palach 2018
The last six months of the life of Jan Palach, who self-immolated to protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia to crush of Prague Spring.
70Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) 2010
Eugene, an aging man, leads a double life - one real, the other in his dreams. He goes to see a psychoanalyst, who tries to interpret the meaning of his dreams. Eugene finds a way of entering his dream-world at will and finds out about his childhood and what really happened to his parents.
72Wrong Side Up 2005
A man who deals with parcels at an airport cargo company finds that he likes planes more than people.
75#annaismissing 2023
Anna is a controversial influencer and best known for her provocative online content, but suddenly she goes silent on her social media profiles and mysteriously stops posting any updates. When 15-year-old Nina finds a half-naked photo of Anna on her dad's phone, she decides to track down the missing influencer.
72Havel 2020
The life career of Václav Havel (1936-2011), a persecuted playwright and human rights defender in the Czech Republic subjected to the implacable power of the Soviet Union who became president of the country in the late 1980s.
64The Snake Brothers 2015
Brothers Grass and Cobra Snake, in their late and early thirties respectively, live in a small Czech town not far from Prague. Coming from a disfunctional family, they both feel unable to build up a life to be satisfied with. Grass, unemployed and still without a girl, does not know how to escape from the shadow of his druggie and troublemaker brother Cobra. Things seem to change for Grass when all at once he gets the opportunity to be part of a promising business and starts a relationship with the waitress of a local pub. It is just then when Cobra and his addiction show up in his life once more to put him on the verge of losing everything he achieved. But this time Grass is determined to not let anybody or anything stop his last chance in life to be happy and he decides to teach his brother a life lesson he should never forget.... A lesson that uncontrollably turns into a nightmare...
71Up and Down 2004
Milan and Goran are two criminals who smuggle illegal immigrants. One night after they complete a smuggle, they discover that one of the immigrants has left a baby behind. Milan and Goran decide to sell the baby to Lubos and Eman, who are responsible for running an illegal baby adoption center. Lubos and Eman make attempts to sell the baby to Miluska and Frantisek, a barren couple.
70Svatá 2024
Olga, a spirited 90-year-old gulag survivor, lives with her daughter Hana in a modest, aging home, their relationship marked by unspoken scars from the past. As Olga gains attention through her memoirs and public talks about her wartime ordeal, investigative reporter Dastychová, who appears to know more about Olga’s history than anyone else, prepares to expose a long-held secret.
69Wild Flowers 2000
Seven seemingly unconnected fairy tales - glued together only by folklore, mood, color and light - make up this Czech collection of visual poetry. The original piece of literature, written by Karel Jaromír Erben in 1853, contained twelve tales.
76Together 2022
When her daughter decides to move back home, Ivana, a mother who only lives for her autistic son, finds her fragile family ecosystem challenged forever.
66Only for Tereza 2021
To win back his girlfriend after an unfortunate misunderstanding, a hopeless romantic decides to recreate grand gestures from famous movies.
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