Czech New Wave — Forman, Chytilová, Menzel, before they fled
The Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s lasted until the tanks arrived in 1968. In that window: Miloš Forman's sharp comedies of small humiliations (Loves of a Blonde, The Firemen's Ball), Věra Chytilová's formally radical Daisies, Jiří Menzel's gentle Closely Watched Trains — based on Hrabal, as much of the best Czech writing is. Jan Němec, Evald Schorm, Vojtěch Jasný. After 1968, some stayed and made cautious work under normalisation; others emigrated. The list filters Czech-language films from the decade of the wave.
Man and Technology
foreign gemplayfulsurreal
Marketa Lazarová
foreign gembody horroroutsider
The Flat
foreign gemdreadmindfuck
Daisies
foreign gembittersweetpitch black
Closely Watched Trains
foreign gembittersweetplayful
The Garden
foreign gemsurrealunhinged
The Ossuary
dreadsurreal
The Firemen's Ball
bittersweetoutsiderpitch black
Loves of a Blonde
bittersweetoutsiderplayful
Don Juan
3am cultoutsiderplayful
The Last Trick
mindfucksurrealunhinged
Ikarie XB 1
cerebralslow burn
Leonardo's Diary
playfulsurreal
Punch and Judy
pitch blacksurrealunhinged
Other canon collections
Comfort-cult — the ones you rewatch forever
Deep-cut rewatchables — off the beaten path, on endless repeat
Japanese New Wave — the essentials
80s horror everyone has forgotten
Giallo — Italy's blood-red mystery genre
Korean cinema essentials beyond Parasite
Post-Soviet cinema — Russia & Eastern Europe after 1991
The Romanian New Wave
Essential anime that isn't Studio Ghibli
Slow cinema — the long-take canon
70s American paranoia — the post-Watergate canon
First features by directors who later mattered
Documentaries that hold up as cinema
Scandinavian noir beyond the Stieg Larsson franchises
Iranian new wave — Kiarostami, Farhadi, and the rest
Argentine cinema — beyond Wild Tales
British kitchen-sink and what it became
First features directed by cinematographers
German New Wave — Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Schlöndorff
Hong Kong action — Woo, Lam, Tsui, To
Spaghetti westerns — Leone, Corbucci, Sollima, and the second tier
Mumblecore — the American indie movement nobody named
French New Wave — Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Rivette, Rohmer
Blaxploitation — Shaft, Pam Grier, and the 70s Black cinema boom
Dogme 95 — von Trier, Vinterberg, and the vow of chastity
Australian New Wave — Weir, Miller, Armstrong, Campion
African cinema — Sembène, Sissako, Mambéty, and beyond
Italian neorealism — the rubble and the real
Commedia all'italiana — Italy laughing at itself
German expressionism — shadows, angles, madness
Taiwanese New Cinema — Hou, Yang, Tsai, and the island's quiet revolution
New Queer Cinema — Haynes, Araki, Van Sant, and the 90s insurgency
Wuxia and martial arts — flying swords, hidden masters