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Summary for: This week's guide to English-friendly Czech cinema and streaming🇬🇧 This Week's English-Friendly Screenings
Adam Scott is a novelist drawn into a web of supernatural folklore and real-world violence in Hokum, a new Irish chiller from filmmaker Damian McCarthy. Set inside a remote hotel in rural Ireland, the film blends gothic atmosphere with psychological mystery as its protagonist’s grip on reality begins to fracture.
The Prague Reporter calls Hokum “McCarthy’s most confident work yet,” praising its “atmospheric dread, narrative misdirection, and carefully deployed shocks.” The film is now playing across Prague cinemas, including screenings at Kino Světozor.
- May 11: The historical thriller The Disappearance of Josef Mengele plays with English subtitles at Edison Filmhub (also on May 13, 14, and 16; and May 12 at Kino Atlas).
- May 11: Czech-Slovak drama Last Routine, a biopic about figure skater Ondrej Nepela, screens with English subtitles at Kino Atlas (also May 13).
- May 11: Edison Filmhub screens The Golden Spurtle, a documentary about the World Porridge Championship in Scotland, preceded by a stand-up set from Scottish comedian Grant Gallacher.
- May 12: Croatian drama Sandbag Dam, about life in a flood-threatened village, plays with English subtitles at Edison Filmhub.
- May 12: Czech-Latvian documentary Death of Death, about unusual efforts to extend life worldwide, plays with English subtitles at Kino Atlas.
- May 13: Oscar-nominated French animated feature Little Amélie or the Character of Rain plays with English subtitles at Edison Filmhub.
- May 14: Little-seen Studio Ghibli animated feature Ocean Waves plays with English subtitles at Bio Oko.
- May 14: Short student films from local filmmakers screen with English subtitles as part of iShorts' Student Shortly 2026 block at Bio Oko.
- May 14: Surviving Derrida, a new documentary exploring the legacy of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, screens with English subtitles at Kino Atlas.
- May 15: Forest Memories, about life in a poor Croatian village between 1926 and 1945, plays with English subtitles at Kino Přítomnost. The screening will be followed by the launch of the Czech translation of its source novel, with author Damir Karakaš in attendance.
- May 15: The new documentary With Hasan in Gaza, comprised of rediscovered footage from Gaza in 2001, screens with English subtitles at Kino Ponrepo.
🍿 New wide releases
- Mortal Kombat II ★★½
🇨🇿 Czech Cinema Spotlight
Originally produced in 2024 but largely bypassing local cinemas, the Czech thriller Samhain has been a surprise hit on Netflix since its streaming debut, charting in the top 10 movies watched on the platform for the past two weeks against much higher-profile competition.
The mystery-crime film from director Daniel Habrda follows a young investigator sent to a remote Šumava village to examine the death of a young woman found in the forest, only to uncover connections to ancient Celtic rituals tied to the Samhain holiday. Samhain is now playing with English subtitles on Netflix.
📺 The Streaming Watchlist
- All seven episodes of the second season of spy series Citadel, with Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Stanley Tucci, are now streaming on Prime Video.
- Steve Coogan and Tom Burke star as British intelligence agents battling the drug trade in Legends, with all six episodes now streaming on Netflix.
- Sally Field is an aquarium cleaner who forms a bond with an Octopus voiced by Alfred Molina in Remarkably Bright Creatures, now streaming on Netflix.
- Season five of The Bear premieres later next month, but fans got a surprise treat with the release of one-off prequel episode Gary, now on Disney+.
- The new BBC adaptation of Lord of the Flies from Adolescence co-creator Jack Thorne has hit Netflix in the States, but is streaming on HBO Max in Czechia.
🎞️ The Throwback
Věra Chytilová’s Prefab Story (also known as PanelStory, or How a Housing Development is Born) follows the chaotic life of residents in a newly built prefabricated housing estate on the outskirts of Prague, capturing everyday frustrations, petty conflicts, and the uneasy reality behind late-socialist urban planning.
Originally completed in the late 1970s but released only after delays under Czechoslovakia’s communist authorities, the film has recently been restored and screened at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year. That restoration is now playing in Prague cinemas, and with English subtitles this week at Kino Aero on May 11, and Kino Atlas and Kino Ponrepo on May 12.
