Quiz: Every Czech should know classic quotes from our films. If you don’t get 8, something is wrong

“Czechs are the funniest nation in the world and know no bounds when it comes to joking.” This is what the British comedian and one of the six members of Monty Python, Michael Palin, said in 2019. Few would disagree with him. Our comedies are the pearl of screenwriting. Do you remember the funniest thing in them?

Already at the beginning of the history of cinematography, domestic filmmakers focused primarily on the comedy genre. Silent films were full of comical mishaps and skits concocted by stars such as Václav Binovec or Karel Lamač.

With the advent of sound, Czech humor was given an endless scope for realization. Among the most successful and well-known actors and actresses were precisely those who accepted roles in comedies, which today we refer to as “Movies for Remembrancers”.

Even back then, these films contained messages that entered the hearts of viewers and became popular within a few years.

This trend continues to this day. Czechs are movie lovers, and they also like to visit cinemas. In 2023 alone, 13.3 million tickets were sold, which can be considered a great success in the age of streaming platforms and widescreen TVs.

The humor of domestic films is timeless. And that, whether it is a relationship to authorities, politics or human misfortune.

“Czechs are capable of pushing things to the point of absurdity,” says the French translator of Czech literature and lover Good soldier Švejk Benoît Meunier.

Movie classics

Among the most popular, however, are still the so-called cult films, i.e. works that have influenced a large part of the population and have definitely become part of the culture.

Source: Youtube

You can easily tell that this is a movie classic. It is enough to see a poster, a shot or someone uttering a familiar message and you immediately know which picture it is. Reminisce about some of these iconic works in our quiz.