Milos Forman

Perhaps the most famous and acclaimed filmmaker to hail from Czechoslovakia, Milos Forman first found success in his native country before doing likewise in Hollywood. Forman earned international acclaim with films like "Black Peter" (1964), "Loves of a Blonde" (1965) and "The Fireman's Ball" (1967), all of which marked a distinct thematic and stylistic break with the prior generation of Czechoslovakian filmmaking that played a major role in shaping that country's cinematic New Wave of the 1960s. After leaving Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia following the Prague Spring in 1968, Forman embarked on a successful career in Hollywood that saw him make some of cinema's most acclaimed and decorated films of all time. In 1975, he directed the subversive, anti-establishment drama, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," which became only the second film ever to win Oscars in all five major categories. In the next decade, he directed the lush and vibrant "Amadeus" (1984), which many considered to be one of the best films of the 1980s. Later films included "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996) and "Man on the Moon" (1999), and with everything he did, Forman made the case for being one of the most accomplished foreign directors to have made considerable contributions to American cinema. His death on April 13, 2018, was cause for mourning for film fans everywhere, and he was lauded by numerous tributes from fans and fellow film professionals alike.