Discover the locations from Czech Oscar-winning films: Closely Watched Trains, Amadeus and Kolya

Of course, there were other films that were nominated but didn’t win any awards. These included works such as The Loves of a Blonde, The Firemen’s Ball, My Sweet Little Village, The Elementary School, Thanks for Every New Morning, The Forgotten Light, Sekal Must Die, The Return of the Idiot, We Must Help One Another, The Dark Blue World, Wild Bees, Želary, Up and Down, Happiness, Madness, I Served the King of England, The Karamazovs, The Protector, Kawasaki’s Rose, Alois Nebel, In the Shadow, The Donšajni, Fair Play, Home Care, Lost in Munich, The Ice Queen, Everything Will Be Alright, The Painted Bird, The Charlatan, Zátopek, Il Boemo, Brothers and Waves.

1966: The Shop on Main Street

The first Oscar for a film went to the Czechoslovakian film The Shop on Main Street by directors Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, which was made in 1965 based on a story by the writer Ladislav Grosman. The story is set in Humenné, where the author comes from, but due to unsuitable socialist architecture, filming ultimately took place in Sabinov, Slovakia. There, the filmmakers found a square that looked as though it were from the past, i.e. without modern department stores and tarmac roads. The memorial to the victims of the Second World War was hidden behind a wooden screen in the film. Today, in Sabinov, a commemorative plaque and a small exhibition, which contains items from the filming and also a replica of the Oscar statuette, serve as a reminder. Interestingly, actress Ida Kamińska was nominated for Best Actress for her performance, but paradoxically not until a year later. She ultimately failed to win the award, as that year it went to Elizabeth Taylor for the film Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

1968: The Train

In a year when now-famous films such as In the Heat of the Night (which ultimately won), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Bonnie and Clyde were in the running, the Oscarfor Best Foreign Language Film went to director Jiří Menzel for Closely Watched Trains. The film was based on a novella by Bohumil Hrabal, who worked as a signalman at Kostomlaty nad Labem station towards the end of the war, and was inspired by the real-life explosion of a German munitions train, which was blown up by partisans in March 1945. However, most of the film was shot in Loděnice, a station on a branch line from Prague to Beroun. The line at Kostomlaty was very busy, whereas Loděnice had a slope, which allowed the filmmakers to shoot from a bird’s-eye view. To mark the film’s 50th anniversary, a commemorative plaque was unveiled on the station building, and the Railway and Closely Watched Trains Museum was opened at the station to mark the 120th anniversary of the opening of the Prague–Rudná–Beroun line. A short nature trail also commemorates the film.

1985: Forman’s Amadeus

Among “our” Oscars, it is certainly worth mentioning the films of the Czechoslovak and American director Miloš Forman. As early as 1976, he won one of five Oscars for directing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1985, the world was captivated by the film Amadeus, which received a total of eight Oscars. Alongside Forman, Theodor Pištěk was honoured for his costume design and Karel Černý, the production designer who adapted the interiors of historic Prague buildings for the film. Forman saw Amadeus as a unique opportunity to return to Prague; although the Communist regime was initially reluctant to approve this, it eventually gave its consent because the filmmakers spent several million dollars in Czechoslovakia. Many Czech actors also appeared in smaller and supporting roles. Filming took place mainly in Prague and Kroměříž from January to July 1983.

The Karlín Invalidovna served as the setting for a sanatorium for the mentally ill, with lavish interiors in the residence of the Archbishop of Prague and the Archbishop’s Castle in Kroměříž. Filming also took place on Hradčanské náměstí, Nerudova Street, Střelecký Island, Vyšehrad, the Wallenstein Garden, Maltézské náměstí and in the game reserve near Veltrusy Castle. Of course, the Estates Theatre could not be left out, where Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni premiered in October 1787 in the presence of the composer. And that little tidbit? For the film, the famous opera was shot on 4 July, Independence Day, which is an American public holiday. Filming had to be paused for a moment; the American flag was hoisted in the theatre and thousands of extras and actors stood up and began singing the national anthem. The people in the front rows remained seated and didn’t move a muscle; they were members of the State Security, the secret police of what was then Czechoslovakia.

1997: Kolja

As early as 1989, director Jan Svěrák won a Student Oscar for the film Ropáci and was later nominated for the film Obecná škola. He won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1997 for Kolja. The first clapperboard sounded on 21 August 1995 at Vinohrady Cemetery in Prague, and the film crew visited a number of locations. Filming took place at the Nymburk crematorium, as well as at crematoria in Prague, Úštěk, Františkovy Lázně, Antýgl in the Šumava Mountains and by the River Vydra; they also visited several restaurants, including the now defunct Malostranská kavárna, and the concourse of the former Moskevská metro station, now known as Anděl. Louka’s romantic bachelor flat is located on Lázeňská Street in Malá Strana, a short distance from the Church of Our Lady beneath the Chain. In addition to an Oscar and a Golden Globe, Kolya also won six Czech Lions, including Best Film, and has been screened in forty countries around the world.

Oscars 2026: the documentary Mr Nobody vs Putin

At the 98th Academy Awards, Mr Nobody vs Putin won the Oscarfor Best Documentary Feature. Alongside American director David Borenstein, who works in Denmark, and Russian co-director Pavel Talankin, Czech filmmakers also contributed to the film’s creation; it was produced by Pink and made in collaboration with Czech Television.

Foreign Oscar-winning films with a Czech connection

In 2017, when the film Blade Runner 2049 won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, people in Prague were also celebrating: the Czech studio Universal Production Pictures (UPP) contributed to many computer-generated scenes. These included, for example, miniatures of the cityscape; the studio also worked on the scene depicting the birth of the replicant character and on one of the fight sequences. Although UPP did not win a statuette itself, the collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmakers was in itself a prestigious accolade for them. Other successful projects include the films The Walk, Wolverine, The Zookeeper’s Wife and All Quiet on the Western Front.

How did the Oscar, the world’s most prestigious film award, come about?

The award known as the Oscar was created shortly after the founding of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s art director, Cedric Gibbons, designed a statuette of a knight standing on a film reel and holding a sword. The Academy then commissioned Los Angeles-based sculptor George Stanley to create this statuette in three dimensions, and thus the famous statuette was born.
What you might not know about the Oscar:

• • The concept of the golden knight has been simplified over the years, but the sword has remained.

• • The five rays on the film reel represent the Academy’s five original branches: actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers.

• • The Oscar statuette measures 34.5 centimetres, the base is 7.5 centimetres, and the statuette weighs a total of 3.85 kilograms, which is roughly the weight of a newborn baby.

• • Since the first awards banquet on 16 May 1929, more than three thousand statuettes have been awarded.

• • Why is the golden statuette called an Oscar? A popular version of the story goes that when the Academy’s librarian, Margaret Herrick, saw the award with its official name, the Academy Award of Merit, she said it looked like her uncle Oscar. The Academy did not officially adopt this nickname until 1939, but it had been in use amongst filmmakers for several years prior.

• • The youngest Oscar winner was Tatum O’Neal, who won an Oscar at the age of ten for Best Supporting Actress in the film *Paper Moon*.

• • The oldest Oscar winner was Jessica Tandy, who received an Oscar for Best Actress in the film Driving Miss Daisy at the age of eighty-one.

• • The statuettes are made of solid bronze and plated with 24-carat gold. Due to a shortage of metal during the Second World War, the Oscars were made from painted plaster for three years. After the war, the Academy invited recipients to exchange their plaster statuettes for gold metal ones.

• • In 1951, the Academy introduced a rule prohibiting winners from selling their Oscars. They must first offer them to the Academy, which may purchase them for a symbolic one dollar.

Other Oscar winners

• • The honour of being the first Czech Oscar winner goes to eleven-year-old Ivan Jandl in 1948 for the American-Swiss film *The Children of the Valley*. As a child, Jandl was a member of Disman’s radio children’s ensemble, where he was discovered by American director Fred Zinnemann and cast in the lead child role in the war film *The Children of the Valley*. The film dealt with the post-war return of children who had been abducted across Europe to the territory of the Third Reich during the Second World War. Jandl played a Czech boy whom his mother is trying to find; the role of the mother was played by the opera singer Jarmila Novotná. The film was shot before the communist coup of 1947 in Swiss studios and amidst the post-war ruins of Munich, Stuttgart and Nuremberg. Other foreign productions were also interested in Jandl, but the communist regime did not allow him to leave the country or study acting at university because of his American award. He subsequently worked as a clerk, art editor and radio editor, and died in 1987.

• • Whenever the Czech-born cinematographer Franz Planer was nominated for an award—on five occasions—it was mostly for American films; these included titles such as Champion (1949), Death of a Salesman (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), The Nun’s Story (1959) and The Children’s Hour (1961). Franz Planer, whose original name was František Plánička, was born in 1894 in Karlovy Vary. Although he never won an Oscar, he became a three-time Golden Globe winner and also directed films such as The Big Country and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

• • Director Jan Pinkava won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film (1998, Geri’s Game) and was also nominated for the film Ratatouille in 2007.

• • In 2008, he presented the Oscar for Best Original Song to Markéta Irglová and Glen Hansard for the song ‘Falling Slowly’ from the Irish film Once.

• • In 2018, the Czech visual effects studio Universal Production Partners (UPP) shared in the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for the film Blade Runner 2049. The studio also received a nomination for its work on All Quiet on the Western Front, where it was involved in all visual effects post-production.

• • In 2020, Russian-Tajik director Daria Kashcheeva, a graduate of Prague’s FAMU, was nominated for an Oscar for the animated film The Daughter, which won the prestigious Student Academy Awards.

• • Nora Sopková was nominated for an Oscar in 2020 for her work on the satirical comedy Jojo Rabbit, for the film’s overall visual design, including elements such as colours, wallpaper, carpets, crockery and furniture.

• • Linda Eisenhamerová is a make-up artist who was nominated for an Oscar in 2023, becoming the first Czech woman ever to receive this nomination for make-up and hairstyling on the film All Quiet on the Western Front. Her most recent projects include the film One Life, about Nicholas Winton.

• • Sound engineer Viktor Prášil was also nominated for his work on All Quiet on the Western Front; he won a BAFTA alongside his colleagues. He has also worked on the films Jan Žižka, Havel and The Painted Bird.

• • Waves, a film directed by Jiří Mádl, was selected by the Czech Film and Television Academy in September 2024 as the Czech Oscar candidate. In December 2024, Waves made it onto the shortlist of fifteen films for the Oscars, but did not make it into the five nominated films in the Best International Feature Film category. This marks the 21st consecutive year without a Czech finalist.

• • The short film Krajan by young directors Pavel Sýkora and Viktor Horák won the Student Oscar in the live-action category in 2024. The lead roles in this film set during the Second World War were played by Jiří Štěpnička and Pavel Batěk.

• • Discover the Czech Republic on film!