Best films · Europe
10 Best Lithuanian Movies to Watch First
Move between poetic documentary, literary adaptation, Soviet-era allegory, historical memory, and a modern cinema attentive to private lives after political change.
Compare this list
Compare the route at a glance
Runtime, mood, and entry level help narrow the list without replacing the editorial ranking.
| Film | Runtime | Genre | Mood | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feelings | 85 min | History · Drama · War | tense · thoughtful · dreamlike | first visit · shorter watch · film history |
| The Devil's Bride | 78 min | Fantasy · Music | dreamlike · uplifting | first visit · shorter watch |
| The Beautiful Girl | 71 min | Drama · Family | thoughtful | first visit · shorter watch |
| Nobody Wanted to Die | 107 min | Drama · Action · History | thoughtful · dark · uplifting | film history |
| Three Days | 75 min | Drama | thoughtful | shorter watch |
| Mars! Mars! Tra-ta-ta! | 78 min | Comedy · Fantasy | funny | shorter watch · a lighter route · film history |
| The Collectress | 84 min | Drama | thoughtful | shorter watch |
| Nova Lituania | 96 min | Drama | thoughtful · dark | shorter watch |
| Forest of the Gods | 120 min | Drama | thoughtful | character-driven drama |
| Redirected | 99 min | Action · Comedy · Crime | tense · funny · dark | shorter watch · a lighter route |
10 Essential Lithuanian Films
Ranked native cinema in Lithuania’s own creative voice.
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1. Feelings
As the Nazi occupation collapses, a widowed fisherman takes refuge with his brother's family and finds himself, like Lithuania itself, caught among agonizing choices of collaboration, resistance, and escape. A poetic, somber wartime drama.
Details
- Runtime
- 85 min
- Genre
- History · Drama · War
- Mood
- tense · thoughtful · dreamlike
- Best for
- first visit · shorter watch · film history
Content notes: war or political violence
-
2. The Devil's Bride
A mischievous devil, once an angel banished to earth for tiring of singing praises, lives in a windmill and blunders through comic and bittersweet pursuits of love and happiness in a Lithuanian village. A beloved musical fantasy-comedy.
Details
- Runtime
- 78 min
- Genre
- Fantasy · Music
- Mood
- dreamlike · uplifting
- Best for
- first visit · shorter watch
-
3. The Beautiful Girl
A little girl, pampered and sure of her own prettiness, has her confidence shaken when a blunt new boy in her housing block declares her ugly, sending her on a bruising small journey of self-discovery. A tender children's film.
Details
- Runtime
- 71 min
- Genre
- Drama · Family
- Mood
- thoughtful
- Best for
- first visit · shorter watch
-
4. Nobody Wanted to Die
In postwar Lithuania, a farming community is torn between the Soviet authorities and the anti-Soviet partisans hiding in the forests, and the sons of a murdered village elder set out for revenge. A landmark Soviet-Lithuanian drama.
Details
- Runtime
- 107 min
- Genre
- Drama · Action · History
- Mood
- thoughtful · dark · uplifting
- Best for
- film history
Content notes: war or political violence · violence or threat
-
5. Three Days
Two aimless young men drift from their run-down home to the strange port city of Kaliningrad, where they meet two equally lost young women, but every attempt at real connection dissolves into silence. Šarūnas Bartas's spare, near-wordless mood piece.
Details
- Runtime
- 75 min
- Genre
- Drama
- Mood
- thoughtful
- Best for
- shorter watch
-
6. Mars! Mars! Tra-ta-ta!
A buffoonish tragicomedy and biting satirical pamphlet lampooning chauvinism, militarism, and petty, self-important politicians. An eccentric Lithuanian comedy.
Details
- Runtime
- 78 min
- Genre
- Comedy · Fantasy
- Mood
- funny
- Best for
- shorter watch · a lighter route · film history
-
7. The Collectress
A speech therapist numbed to all emotion after a trauma is startled to glimpse a flicker of feeling when she sees herself on video, and begins compulsively provoking and recording extreme experiences to feel something again. A cool, unsettling drama.
Details
- Runtime
- 84 min
- Genre
- Drama
- Mood
- thoughtful
- Best for
- shorter watch
-
8. Nova Lituania
In the anxious interwar years, an idealistic Lithuanian geographer campaigns for a radical scheme to found a backup Lithuania overseas should the homeland be overrun, only to be mocked by a government drifting toward catastrophe. A wry, melancholy historical drama.
Details
- Runtime
- 96 min
- Genre
- Drama
- Mood
- thoughtful · dark
- Best for
- shorter watch
Content notes: war or political violence
-
9. Forest of the Gods
An artist and intellectual who lives by his own private code of ethics survives imprisonment first by the Nazis and then by the Soviets, holding onto his humanity and dark humor amid the horrors of the camps. Based on a true memoir.
Why & details
Curator’s note: A Lithuanian Holocaust and camp-memory drama adapted from Balys Sruoga's Lithuanian memoir.
- Runtime
- 120 min
- Genre
- Drama
- Mood
- thoughtful
- Best for
- character-driven drama
-
10. Redirected
After a heist goes wrong, four hapless British friends are stranded in the criminal underworld of Lithuania and must bluff their way home by posing as hit men, smugglers, and worse. A raucous, violent crime comedy.
Details
- Runtime
- 99 min
- Genre
- Action · Comedy · Crime
- Mood
- tense · funny · dark
- Best for
- shorter watch · a lighter route
Content notes: violence or threat
The view from outside
10 Best Movies Set in or About Lithuania
Compare foreign perspectives on occupation, the Holocaust, exile, art, and Baltic identity with Lithuania’s own modes of remembering.
- The Other Dream Team 2012
- Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania 1972
- Mr. Landsbergis 2021
Selected by the FilmsAroundThe.World editorial desk
Ranked for craft, enduring reputation, influence, and importance within Lithuania cinema. Decision labels are concise editorial aids, and content notes are non-exhaustive. Read the methodology.
Editorial review: 2026-07-13
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