A new 4K restoration of František Vláčil’s monumental medieval epic, widely regarded as one of the greatest Czech films ever made. Marketa Lazarová will screen at Film at Lincoln Center from September 4 to 13, 2026, as part of its New Releases series.
TICKETSMarketa Lazarová / 1967 / historical drama / Czechoslovakia / Czech and German with English subtitles / 165 min.
Director: František Vláčil / Screenplay: František Pavlíček, František Vláčil / Cinematography: Bedřich Baťka / Music: Zdeněk Liška
Adapted from Vladislav Vančura’s modernist novel, the film plunges viewers into the violent borderlands of 13th-century Bohemia during the uneasy transition from paganism to Christianity. After the ruthless Kozlík clan ambushes a procession of nobles, the king’s soldiers descend on their forest stronghold. The conflict soon reaches Marketa, a young woman promised to a convent, whose abduction by Kozlík’s son Mikoláš becomes the film’s emotional core.
Shot in stark widescreen black and white and driven by Zdeněk Liška’s haunting choral and percussive score, Marketa Lazarová transforms medieval history into an immersive, dreamlike vision of faith, desire, brutality, and survival. Its radical imagery and sound have secured its place as a landmark of Czechoslovak cinema, and in a 1998 poll of Czech critics and filmmakers, it was voted the greatest Czech film ever made.
A Janus Films release. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center as part of New Releases.
