Reading time: 3 minutes 
Summary for: This week's guide to English-friendly Czech cinema and streaming🇨🇿 Czech Cinema Spotlight
Now playing in Czech cinemas, Kingdom of Soap Bubbles traces the rise and fall of the Schicht family, pioneering industrialists from Ústí nad Labem whose “soap with the stag” brand once rivaled Baťa and Škoda as dominant Czech brands across Central Europe.
Beyond industrial history, the film explores questions of heritage, memory, and reconciliation as the Schichts’ descendants reflect on a legacy disrupted by war and nationalization. Kingdom of Soap Bubbles plays with English subtitles at Kino Atlas on Feb. 11 and Feb. 14.
🇬🇧 This Week's English-Friendly Screenings
- Feb. 9-14: The Eigasai film festival brings contemporary Japanese films with English subtitles to Kino Lucerna.
- Feb. 9-13: Ahead of the release of Father Mother Sister Brother, classics from director Jim Jarmusch are screening at Kino Aero, Kino Světozor, Bio Oko, and Kino Přítomnost.
- Feb. 9: Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas plays as part of Kino Aero's Legends series, ahead of the director's arrival in Prague to shoot his latest film.
- Feb. 10: Anime classic Cowboy Bebop: The Movie will screen with English subtitles at Kino Aero.
- Feb. 10: A special Valentine's edition of iShorts at Bio Oko will feature a lineup of romance-themed (and English-friendly) short films.
- Feb. 11: Newly-restored Czech classic The Valley of the Bees screens with English subtitles at Kino Aero (and also Feb. 14 at Kino Atlas).
- Feb. 14: Valentine's Day classics! Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman screen at Kino Aero, and When Harry Met Sally... plays at Kino Přítomnost.
- Feb. 14: Karel Zeman's classic animated feature A Thousand and One Nights screens in a newly-restored version with English subtitles at Kino Atlas.
🍿 New wide releases
📺 The Streaming Watchlist
Adapted from Kateřina Tučková’s novel, the two-part miniseries Gerta Schnirch revisits one of the most painful chapters of Czech history through the life of a Czech-German woman caught between nations, ideologies, and generations. Directed by Tomáš Mašín (Brothers), the drama follows Gerta from adolescence through old age, tracing her survival of the Brno death march.
Rather than offering a purely historical account, the miniseries centers on intimate trauma and moral ambiguity, showing how violence, silence, and displacement echo across generations. Gerta Schnirch is now playing with English subtitles on HBO Max.
- The fourth season of Netflix legal thriller The Lincoln Lawyer, starring Manuel Garcia Rulfo, is now streaming in full.
- The Muppet Show is back for 2026! Stream the new special, featuring Sabrina Carpenter and Seth Rogen, on Disney+.
- New rom-com Relationship Goals, with Kelly Rowland and Method Man, is now streaming on Prime Video.
- James L. Brooks' comedy-drama Ella McCay skipped theatrical release in Czechia, but it's now streaming on Disney+.
- Hit hockey drama-romance Heated Rivalry has finally made it to Czechia, now streaming on HBO Max.
🎞️ The Throwback
Nearly a century after its debut, Erotikon returns in a newly restored version that highlights why Gustav Machatý’s silent drama remains one of the most daring works of early Czech cinema. Completed in 1929, the film’s modernist approach to passion and desire set it apart from its contemporaries and paved the way for Machatý’s later, more infamous Ecstasy.
The new restoration, overseen by the Czech National Film Archive and presented with a newly commissioned orchestral score, brings the film closer to its original, uncensored form. Ahead of Valentine’s Day later this week, Erotikon screens with renewed intensity in an English-friendly version at Kino Atlas on Feb. 11.
