10 Best Polish Movies to Watch First

10 Essential Polish Films

Ranked native cinema in Poland’s own creative voice.

1. 

   1. Loving Vincent

   2017

   A young man delivering the painter Vincent van Gogh's final letter is drawn into investigating the mystery of the artist's death, interviewing those who knew him. Rendered entirely in hand-painted oil animation in van Gogh's own style, a singular biographical mystery.

2. 

   2. Cold War

   Zimna wojna · 2018

   In the ruins of postwar Poland, a musician and a passionate young singer fall into a turbulent, decades-spanning love affair that carries them across the Iron Curtain and back, forever mismatched and unable to part. Paweł Pawlikowski's ravishing, black-and-white romance.

3. 

   3. Ida

   2013

   In 1960s Poland, a young novice nun about to take her vows learns she is Jewish, and journeys with her worldly aunt to uncover what became of her family during the German occupation. Paweł Pawlikowski's spare, luminous, Oscar-winning drama.

4. 

   4. Three Colours: White

   Trois couleurs : Blanc · 1994

   Humiliated and abandoned by his French wife, a Polish hairdresser makes his way back home penniless and plots an elaborate scheme to remake himself and win a strange kind of revenge. Krzysztof Kieślowski's wry, bittersweet second entry in the trilogy.

5. 

   5. Knife in the Water

   Nóż w wodzie · 1962

   A well-off couple invites a young hitchhiker aboard their sailboat for a day on the lake, and the husband's needling games of dominance build into a taut, simmering contest of masculinity. Roman Polanski's tense, acclaimed debut.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A Polish chamber thriller and key international breakthrough for Polish cinema.

6. 

   6. A Short Film About Killing

   Krótki film o zabijaniu · 1988

   A drifting young man commits a senseless, brutal murder, and an idealistic new lawyer is drawn into his case as the machinery of the death penalty grinds forward. Krzysztof Kieślowski's stark, unflinching indictment of killing in all its forms.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A Polish moral drama about violence, law, and capital punishment.

7. 

   7. Ashes and Diamonds

   Popiół i diament · 1958

   On the final day of World War II in Poland, a young resistance fighter ordered to assassinate a Communist official finds his resolve shaken when he falls for a barmaid and glimpses the possibility of a different life. Andrzej Wajda's landmark drama.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A Polish cinema landmark about postwar moral conflict and national transition.

8. 

   8. Katyń

   2007

   This drama recounts the 1940 Katyń massacre, in which the Soviets executed thousands of captured Polish officers, and follows the families left waiting and the decades of official lies that buried the truth. Andrzej Wajda's sober, personal historical epic.

9. 

   9. Corpus Christi

   Boże Ciało · 2019

   A charismatic young ex-convict who found faith in reform school arrives in a small town and, impersonating a priest, unexpectedly takes over the parish, bringing genuine solace to a grieving community while living a dangerous lie. A gripping, Oscar-nominated drama.

10. 

    10. Sexmission

    Seksmisja · 1984

    Two men volunteer for a hibernation experiment and wake decades later into a subterranean, all-female future where men are believed extinct, and their bumbling attempts to survive turn subversive. A beloved Polish sci-fi comedy that slyly mocked the Communist regime.