Croatian filmmakers like Branko Marjanović produced in 1943 the documentary Straža na Drini which later won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, attended by Axis power countries.

Many technicians and co-workers of the Ustaše propaganda cinema industry during the war were in fact double agents working for the partisan side, with one main task: to keep the technical facilities untouched upon the collapse of NDH.

Croatian feature films from the 1950s were not easily distinguishable from those made in the rest of Yugoslavia; this was mainly owing to the free flow of resources, information and talent among the various parts of the country.

Among other important Bauer films are Tri Ane (Three Annas, 1959), produced in Macedonia, about a father who finds out that his daughter, whom he presumed to have been killed in the war, could be alive.

Both of them were directed by guests from abroad: Italian Giuseppe De Santis with Cesta duga godina dana (A Road One Year Long, 1958), and Slovenian France Štiglic with Deveti krug (The Ninth Circle, 1960).

Using techniques derived from the stream-of consciousness novel, Mimica tells a story about a partisan veteran and communist executive who travels to his native island and faces ghosts of the post-war past.

In the early 1970s, following Yugoslav constitutional changes, Croatia gained more autonomy in shaping its cultural affairs., but following the collapse of the Croatian Spring, authorities pushed for tighter control over films.

Grlić's most famous film, competing at Cannes, is Samo jednom se ljubi (1981), a political melodrama that depicts the early communist establishment in the late 1940s.

In the 1980s, Croatians began creating "neo-genre" works which who used Western commercial genres such as horror, thriller, or mystery and implemented it in late-communist societal settings.

The most famous director of that trend is Zoran Tadić, especially with his metaphysical, black-and-white thriller Ritam zločina (Rhythm of the Crime, 1981), and horror movie Treći kljuć (The Third Key, 1983), which examines corruption through kafkaesque metaphor.

In the period of the rule of Franjo Tuđman, the government avoided direct censorship, but demanded more nationalistic content, making it less accessible not only to audiences in other countries, but also to Croatians.

One of the most popular directors in the contemporary Croatian cinema is Vinko Brešan whose comedies Kako je počeo rat na mom otoku (How the War Started on My Island, 1997), and Maršal (Marshal Tito's Spirit, 1999) mix grotesque humor and political provocation.

This was followed by animations produced by Dom narodnog zdravlja such as Ivin zub (Ivo's Tooth), Macin nos (Kitty's Nose), all of which were directed by Milan Marijanović and drawn by Petar Papp in 1928.

The Zagreb school was revolutionary for the animations of the 1950s, because it abandoned the Disney-like cartoon style, and introduced visual elements of avant-garde abstract painting, constructivism and cubism.

Many Croats have participated in world cinema, including actor-director Rade Šerbedžija, actor Goran Višnjić, producer Branko Lustig, and actress Mira Furlan.