Reading time: 3 minutes 
Summary for: This week's guide to English-friendly Czech cinema and streaming🇨🇿 Czech Cinema Spotlight
Mr. Nobody Against Putin, screening this week with English subtitles at Kino Světozor and Edison Filmhub, follows a schoolteacher in rural Russia documenting the state-enforced militarization of students’ education after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Co-produced by Czechia and Denmark, it is the official Danish submission to the 2026 Oscars.
The Prague Reporter calls it “an urgent and invaluable document of life inside contemporary Russia,” highlighting the chilling indoctrination of children and the personal risks taken by teacher-filmmaker Pavel Talankin to reveal the system’s impact. After fleeing Russia, Talankin now resides in the Czech Republic.
🇬🇧 This Week's English-Friendly Screenings
- The Aussie & Kiwi Film Festival brings new films from Australia and New Zealand to Edison Filmhub, Kino Lucerna, and Kino Ponrepo through Nov. 21.
- The French Film Festival runs from Nov. 20-26 at Kino Světozor, Kino Lucerna, Edison Filmhub, and Kino 35, with English subtitles on selected screenings.
- Riefenstahl, a new documentary about the filmmaker famous for her Nazi propaganda films, shows with English subtitles at Edison Filmhub and Kino Atlas.
- No Other Choice, the latest from South Korean director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy), premieres with English subtitles at Kino Aero and Bio Oko on Nov. 19.
- Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained and one of the films that inspired it, Sergio Corbucci's classic The Great Silence, will screen at Kino Aero on Nov. 20.
- A special Autumn Harvest edition of the Shockproof Film Festival runs at Kino Aero from Nov. 21-23, with bad taste classics like Frankenhooker and Erotic Ghost Story.
- The BalCan CrossOver Fest returns to Kino Přítomnost with English-subtitled screenings of films from the Balkans, Nov. 21–23.
🍿 New wide releases
- The Running Man ★★★☆ (read review)
- The Smashing Machine ★★★☆ (read review)
- Now You See Me: Now You Don't ★★☆☆ (read review)
📺 The Streaming Watchlist
Polish crime drama The Cop. A New Chapter (Glina. Nowy rozdział), now streaming on SkyShowtime in Czechia, revives the popular series 17 years after it last aired.
The show follows seasoned detectives Artur Banaś (Maciej Stuhr) and Jóźwiak (Jacek Braciak), joined by ambitious newcomer Tamara Rudnik (Nela Maciejewska), as they navigate Warsaw’s brutal underworld.
- The Beast in Me, a new eight-episode psychological thriller starring Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys, is now streaming on Netflix.
- Malice, a six-episode psychological thriller with David Duchovny and Jack Whitehall about a family ensnared by their new tutor, is streaming on Prime Video.
- Kevin James, Reacher's Alan Ritchson, and Alan Tudyk star in Playdate, a new screwball comedy streaming on Prime Video.
- Hundreds of samurai fight to the death in Kyoto in Last Samurai Standing, a Meiji-era battle-royale series now streaming on Netflix.
- One to One: John & Yoko, a documentary exploring the couple’s post-Beatles activism and music in 1970s America, is now streaming on HBO Max.
- The Sundance award-winning doc Come See Me in the Good Light, which follows poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley, is now streaming on Apple TV+.
🎞️ The Throwback
Directed by Jan Svěrák and starring his father Zdeněk Svěrák, the film follows cellist František Louka, who unexpectedly becomes guardian to a young Russian boy. The Velvet Revolution appears in the backdrop, notably in a climactic demonstration on Wenceslas Square, blending Czech political history with touching personal drama.
