This week's guide to English-friendly Czech cinema and streaming

Brazilian Oscar nominee The Secret Agent follows an industrial researcher hiding among dissidents in 1970s Recife while pursued by hired assassins. Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho, the film blends historical political turmoil, local folklore, nail-biting tension, and nods to cinematic classics (including a Czech inspiration—see below).

“The Secret Agent’s meticulous recreation of 1970s Brazil, combined with a thrilling yet morally complex narrative and outstanding performances, makes it one of the year’s most memorable cinematic achievements,” writes The Prague Reporter. Now screening with English subtitles at select showings at Kino Světozor, Kino Aero, and Bio Oko.

Directed by Jitka Rudolfová, the new Czech-Slovak drama Dancing with the Bear follows an expecting couple (Pavla Gajdošíková and Kryštof Hádek) confronting the possibility that their unborn child may have Down syndrome, forcing them into an intimate and deeply fraught moral dilemma.

Writing for iDnes.cz, Mirka Spáčilová writes that “although it raises the painful dilemma of whether to risk giving birth to a disabled child, it skillfully avoids idealized notions and allows each person to keep their own point of view.” Dancing with the Bear is now screening with English subtitles at Kino Světozor and Kino Atlas.

Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho cited Czech classic The Ear as a key influence on The Secret Agent, and included it in a curated series in New York earlier this year. Directed by Karel Kachyňa, the long-banned 1970 thriller follows a party official and his wife over one sleepless night as they begin to suspect the regime is listening to their every word.

Banned after its completion and unseen publicly until 1990, the film remains one of the sharpest Czech works about life under political repression. The Ear is currently streaming with English subtitles on KVIFF.TV in Czechia.