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Closely Watched Trains

Original title: Ostre sledované vlaky

“All it takes to make a man of a boy is a woman.”

1966 · 1 h 32 min
Directed by Jiří Menzel
ComedyDramaRomance

Cast

Václav Neckář Jitka Bendová Josef Somr

Credits

Written by: Bohumil Hrabal

Plot

During the Second World War, Miloš Hrma, a shy young trainee at a small railway station in occupied Czechoslovakia, struggles with his inability to make love to his girlfriend. While the older station staff go about their daily routines, Miloš tries to solve his problem, and becomes involved in a resistance plan to blow up a German ammunition train. Jiří Menzel's 1966 debut, based on a novel by Bohumil Hrabal, combines gentle comedy with tragedy and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Sinekatalog’s take

Jiří Menzel's Czech New Wave comedy follows a shy railway trainee during the Nazi occupation. Gentle, funny and bittersweet, it won an Oscar and balances absurdity with sudden tragedy.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 7.6 / 10 (15,237 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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