The Frog Prince

The pragmatic, reserved and refined Maigret investigates murders in his singular unhurried manner and inevitably discovers the truth.

In 1930s Prague, a Czech cremator who firmly believes cremation relieves one from earthly suffering is drawn inexorably to Nazism.

The Slippers of Happiness is another film made by the Slovak Film Production in co-production with West German companies based on classic world fairy tales. After Slovak folk tales [The Greatest Peck in the World, Salt Over Gold] and the works of German fairy tale writers Wilhelm Hauff [The False Prince] and the Brothers Grimm [The Land of the Thrush's Beard, Perinbaba], screenwriter Alex Koenigsmark and director Juraj Herz were inspired by the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It tells the story of slippers that the Fairy of Fortune enchanted so that they would fulfill every human wish and thus bring people happiness. The filmmakers humorously transferred the plot from Copenhagen to old Prague.

A military base. An awkward soldier. A statue of Bach. And suddenly all guns in the area change into music instruments. Great mystery is immediately found by TV station. And soon the military base becomes a stage for huge TV show.

Julie, the youngest daughter of a bankrupt merchant, sacrifices her life in order to save her father. She goes to an enchanted castle in the woods and meets Netvor, a bird-like monster. As Netvor begins to fall in love with Julie, he must suppress his beastly urge to kill her.

A funny outlaw tale inspired by traditional folk humour. Pacho is no ordinary outlaw. He detests injustice and feudal oppression and he copes with each troublesome situation with the help of his cleverness and wit.

Jealous of her vapidly "good" sister's popularity, poisonous Viktoria doses pretty Klara's tea with a slow-acting fatal substance. As the latter grows hysterically weak, the former finds success increasingly compromised by guilt, blackmail, and the pesky need to kill others lest she be exposed.

A satire of the Great American Way, with Lemonade Joe a "clean living" gunfighter who drinks only Kola-Loca Lemonade and convinces everyone else in town (with his gun skills) that all "real men" drink ONLY lemonade!

In a small town in Nazi-occupied Slovakia during World War II, decent but timid carpenter Tono is named "Aryan comptroller" of a button store owned by an old Jewish widow, Rozalie. Since the post comes with a salary and standing in the town's corrupt hierarchy, Tono wrestles with greed and guilt as he and Rozalie gradually befriend each other. When the authorities order all Jews in town to be rounded up, Tono faces a moral dilemma unlike any he's known before.

The Emperor of a European country demands new clothes to wear every day, in fact sometimes several times a day. He imposes a heavy tax on the poor citizens to pay for his vanity. An itinerant man and boy come to the capital city and see the injustice, and make friends, but they soon have to flee. They return disguised as Arab tailors, and offer to make the Emperor a new suit of clothes. But only the wise will be able to see it; fools, or those unfit for their public office, will not see anything. The Emperor orders the suit made, and much money is needed to purchase the raw materials. Eventually the suit is ready, and the Emperor and his officials pretend that they can see a wonderful outfit; will anyone prick the bubble of the illusion?

Vašek learns that he is dying, so he steals a painting and goes to Rome to sell it – he needs money for a healer. Sitting on a train with a fake mustache on his face, he has no idea that he has, in fact, been sent on a spiritual quest of his life by a beautiful girl. His pursuers look as if they were transported from a 1970’s movie, yet his attention is constantly drawn to the other passengers, who pull him into their own stories with no mercy. Vašek slowly gets lost in a colorful chaos of other people’s destinies, opinions and his own dreams. In the end, his train will take some of them to hell, others to enlightenment or a bizarre epiphany. The film takes a humorous view on all the basic philosophical questions we have heard so many times but that we have yet to find the answers to.

Juraj Herz adapts Bohumil Hrabal's story about a man who works in a junk shop.

The waitress Gita from the hotel "Bobí vrch" approaches her lover who has not left his wife yet and gives him an ultimatum: if he does not do all according to her wish, she will announce to the police his machinations with foreign currency.

This three-part Austrian/Czech comedy stretches the boundaries of what is considered to be humorous. Part one finds a silent film actor upset because of a rival actor's attention to the former's wife. When he kills his rival, it is only when he is strapped to the electric chair that he realizes that this is his last live scene. The second episode has the wife of an elderly British nobleman having an affair with the young gamekeeper of their estate. Part three finds a peasant woman taking a lover when her husband goes off to fight the war.

Sherlock Holmes likes to play violin and expects a great career in music. He gets a place in a spa orchestra, but he is again and again distracted by criminal cases. Therefore he is the only one who does not see that his violin has no future. He solves the criminal mysteries in passing but the final test shows that the famous detective is tone-deaf.