Movies like Kolya (1996)
The best movies like Kolya (1996) are Divided We Fall (2000), The Elementary School (1991) and Cosy Dens (1999). If Kolya hooked you with its drama and comedy, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedGood Bye, Lenin! (2003)7.5/10 from 2,736 votes
- NewestThe Gardener's Year (2024)Released 2024
Divided We Fall (2000)
In 1943, a childless couple, the Čížeks, decide to hide a Jewish refugee, David Wiener, the son of Čížek's former employer, in the secret pantry of their apartment. Čížek is aware of the danger into which he has brought his household and his neighbours, but he takes helping his fellow man in need for granted. But at the same time, as a largely unheroic hero, he is dying of fear. His personal situation is greatly complicated by the approaching end of the war, when he faces danger from both the Germans and his "honest" fellow Czechs...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Elementary School (1991)
The time is 1945-46. 10 year old Eda and his friend Tonda live in a small village outside Prague. In school, their class is so wild and indisciplined that their teacher quits and is replaced by the militant Igor Hnidzo. He is very strict – but also very fair. His weakness though, is his interest in young women.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCosy Dens (1999)
Two families, Sebkovi and Krausovi, are celebrating Christmas, but not everyone is in a good mood. The teenage kids think that their fathers are totally stupid, and the fathers are sure that their children are nothing more than rebels, hating anything they say.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMy Sweet Little Village (1985)
The movie's main storyline follows the life of Otík, a young man, in a tight-knit village community. The sweet-tempered Otík works as an assistant truck driver with Mr. Pávek, his older colleague and practical-minded neighbor. Pávek's family takes care of Otík, whose parents are dead. However, the two coworkers become at odds over Otík's inability to perform even the simplest tasks. Pávek demands that Otík be transferred to assist another driver, who happens to be a choleric and suspicious man named Turek (Turk in Czech). Rather than work with Turek, Otík decides to accept an offer of employment in Prague, but finds he does not fit in to the city life. After discovering that the transfer of Otík to Prague was a trick by a crooked politician to get a deal on Otík's large inherited house, Pávek agrees to give Otík a second chance and retrieves him from the city to resume their work together.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisPupendo (2003)
Artist Bedřich Mára (Bolek Polivka) is unable to find much secure work due to his public antagonism toward the ruling Communist Party. He has a wife and two children. Life begins to change when art historian Alois Fábera (Jiři Pecha) begins working on a piece about Bedřich, leading to a job offer from a Party official. Things are looking up, until the wrong people hear portions of the historian's writing.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
My Life as a Dog (1985)
A boy, obsessed with comparing himself with those less fortunate, experiences a different life at the home of his aunt and uncle in 1959 Sweden.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOwners (2019)
Mrs. Zahrádková has a plan to convince the other co-owners of the flats to finally save the house in which they live together and which is in emergency condition.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBarefoot (2017)
Story of a small boy is forced to move out of Prague during World War 2 to a small village of Slavonice where he meets the rest of his family. He needs to make new friends and get used to a new life which is immensely different from what this city boy was used to.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisGood Bye, Lenin! (2003)
Alex Kerner's mother was in a coma while the Berlin wall fell. When she wakes up he must try to keep her from learning what happened (as she was an avid communist supporter) to avoid shocking her which could lead to another heart attack.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Teacher (2016)
The principal of an elementary school calls a special parents meeting after it’s alleged that the seemingly empathetic and kindly-looking teacher Mrs. Drazděchová uses her students to manipulate their parents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRéveillon (2023)
What was supposed to be a joyful celebration over the dissolution of Czechoslovakia turns chaotic when the Varchal family discovers that their father betrayed both country and family by working for the secret police. The family members turn against each other.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Forbidden Dreams (1987)
Leo Popper is a happy family man living in rural Bohemia in the years preceding the Nazi invasion. Out of economic necessity he moves with his family to the big city and becomes an enterprising vacuum cleaner salesman. There he embarks on a series of adulterous adventures, has encounters with boxing pros and famous portrait artists, and schemes to purchase the perfect pond to fulfill his passion for fishing. When the Nazis gain control, the comedy turns sour - he loses his lake, his job, and finally, his family.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Marecek, Pass Me the Pen! (1976)
This comedy is about one average family. The father works as master in the factory and his son is studying on high school. One day father must start to visit the evening school. It's the same school as his son visiting. The lives both students are connecting together. The son must teach the math and physics his own father. The father getting to know, that the life of the students is not simple as he supposed.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisI Served the King of England (2007)
Prague, Czechoslovakia, during the inter-war period. Jan Dítě, a young and clever waiter who wants to become a millionaire, comes to the conclusion that to achieve his ambitious goal he must be diligent, listen and observe as much as he can, be always discreet and use what he learns to his own advantage; but the turbulent tides of history will continually stand in his way.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKitchen Stories (2003)
Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSun, Hay and a Couple of Slaps (1989)
For a second time this film leads us to the village in South Bohemia. We meet again Konopnik family and Skopek family. Venca Konopnik is marrying Blazena Skopek but there is another woman Milada who is very jealous and she is spreading gossips about Venca Konopnik. Those gossips are so powerful that they lead to big fights between Konopnik and Skopek families. You will also see what a progress on milk-yielding-cows-project has been made.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Invalid (2023)
Grumpy handyman Laco loses everything to a group of mobsters. Now wheelchair-bound and with his life spiraling, it's his new friend Gabo, a local Roma who helps Laco see things with a new perspective. Revenge is sweet.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Dark Blue World (2001)
Lt. Franta Slama is a top pilot in the Czech Air Force who is assigned to train a promising young flier, Karel Vojtisek, and they soon become friends. When Nazi Germany invades Czechoslovakia in 1939, they both reject the authority of their new leaders and escape to England where they join other Czech exiles in the RAF. While flying a mission over England, Karel crash lands and happens upon the farmhouse of Susan, a young woman whose husband is in the Navy. Karel soon falls head over heels for Susan but, while they enjoy a brief fling, in time Susan decides she prefers the company of the older and more worldly Franta. As Franta and Karel struggle to maintain their friendship despite their romantic rivalry.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHow to Pull Out a Whale's Tooth (1977)
Vasek, 8 years old boy is desperate to find a new "father" for his mother.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Vaclav (2007)
Vaclav, the village loser, in his 40's bordering on autism, lives with his widowed mother on the outskirts of the village. He is seen by villagers as the local fool, nothing but a constant pain for them, but there is a skeleton in the village closet concerning his father's death.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Madame Rosa (1977)
Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Gardener's Year (2024)
A devoted gardener and his wife live peacefully at the foot of a hill, tending their nursery according to nature’s rhythms. When a new castle owner seeks to transform the entire estate and demands they sell their garden business, the couple refuses. In response, the owner erects barbed-wire fences and places a guard at the entrance road…
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
The Beauty of Vice (1986)
In the mountains of Montenegro people have lived by strict and Draconian laws for centuries, almost untouched by modern civilization. However, a young couple are going to seek their fortune on the more liberal coast and there they find jobs in the nudist colony. Hundreds of naked bodies and atmosphere of joie d'vivre make the husband and wife question their rigid way of life.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
The Northerners (1992)
A black comedy set in the 1960s in a small Netherlands community, populated by a cast of eccentrics, all of whom hold a range of sexual obsessions and frustrated desires.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLuna Papa (1999)
The unborn child of Mamlakat is telling her story. She is 17, beautiful and vivacious, and dreaming secretly of becoming an actress. She lives with her father and brother in a small village in Central Asia. One night she is seduced by an actor from a travelling troupe, who poses as a friend of Tom Cruise, and gets her pregnant. She tries to abort, but her father and brother become determined to find the seducer, setting in motion a cascade of comic adventures.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisEmpties (2007)
Czech literature teacher Josef Tkaloun, who is past retirement age, realises one day that he no longer understands his pupils, and so he quits… dramatically. What he does not predict is that in doing this he will lose his sense of place in society.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both comedy
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCharlatan (2020)
Born in the early 20th century, herbalist Jan Mikolasek became rich and famous after curing countless diseases with unorthodox means. A true emblem of Czechoslovakia before World War II, the healer became even more appreciated during the Nazi occupation and the communist regime. Each regime appreciates his skill and protects him. But how much will it cost him to maintain his status in a new political change?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBeyond Silence (1996)
Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDivine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)
In a sleepy Louisiana parish, a group of lifelong friends stage a rather unorthodox intervention to help a young playwright unravel the truth about her complicated mother and let go of her painful past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both comedy & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNothing in Common (1986)
A successful advertising executive finds his freewheeling life crashing to a halt when his parents end their longtime marriage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & comedy
SnoozefestMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Kolya?
The closest matches to Kolya are Divided We Fall (2000), The Elementary School (1991) and Cosy Dens (1999). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Kolya?
People who watched Kolya most often go on to Divided We Fall (2000), The Elementary School (1991) and Cosy Dens (1999).
What is the highest-rated movie like Kolya?
Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), rated 7.5/10 by 2,736 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Kolya?
The Gardener's Year (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
How are movies similar to Kolya chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Kolya, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.