Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (/ˈmiːloʊʃ/;[2] Czech: [ˈmɪloʃ ˈforman]; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech-American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968.

During this time, he also directed notable and acclaimed films such as Black Peter (1964), Loves of a Blonde (1965), Hair (1979), Ragtime (1981), Valmont (1989), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and Man on the Moon (1999).

[7] During the Nazi occupation, Rudolf, a member of the resistance,[8] was arrested for distributing banned books, and reportedly died from typhus[9] in Mittelbau-Dora, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in May 1944.

After the war, he attended the King George boarding school in Poděbrady, where his fellow students included Václav Havel, the Mašín brothers, and future film-makers Ivan Passer and Jerzy Skolimowski.

Along with fellow filmmaker and friend Passer, he left Europe for the United States during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in summer 1968.

In Czechoslovakia in 1964, the aimless Petr (Ladislav Jakim) starts work as a security guard in a busy self-service supermarket; unfortunately, he is so lacking in confidence that even when he sees shoplifters, he cannot bring himself to confront them.

He is similarly tongue-tied with the lovely Asa (Pavla Martínková) and during the lectures about personal responsibility and the dignity of labor that his blustering father (Jan Vostrčil) delivers at home.

Loves of a Blonde is one of the best–known movies of the Czechoslovak New Wave, and won awards at the Venice and Locarno film festivals.

[26] The Czech term zhasnout (to switch lights off), associated with petty theft in the film, was used to describe the large-scale asset stripping that occurred in the country during the 1990s.

[27] "When Soviet tanks rumbled into Prague in August 1968, Forman was in Paris negotiating for the production of Taking Off (1971), his first American film.

[30] The film starred Lynn Carlin and Buck Henry, and also featured, as Jeannie, Linnea Heacock, discovered, with friends, in Washington Square Park.

Despite the failure of Taking Off, producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz hired him to direct the adaptation of Ken Kesey's cult novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

The film won Oscars in the five most important categories: Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.

One of only three films in history to do so (alongside It Happened One Night and The Silence of the Lambs), it firmly established Forman's reputation.

[21] Arthur Knight, film critic of The Hollywood Reporter declared in his review, "With One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Forman takes his rightful place as one of our most creative young directors.

Retelling the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, it starred Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge and F. Murray Abraham.

[33] Forman's adaptation, Valmont (1989) of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's novel Les Liaisons dangereuses had its premiere on 17 November 1989.

[21] The film received mixed reviews with critic of the Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson, praising its gorgeous costumes, but noting its inferior quality to Dangerous Liaisons.

[22] The biography, Man on the Moon (1999) was of famous actor and avant-garde comic Andy Kaufman (Jim Carrey, who won a Golden Globe for his performance) premiered on 22 December 1999.

Right before the film started shooting, the whole project was completely scrapped, most probably due to intervention from people at the top of the political scene, as Škvorecký had just published his novel The Cowards, which was strongly criticized by communist politicians.

[38] In the spring and summer of 1968, Škvorecký and Forman cooperated again by jointly writing a script synopsis to make a film version of The Cowards.

[41] In 1995, it was announced that Forman would direct a remake of Dodsworth (1936) for Warner Bros. starring Harrison Ford, from a script by Alfred Uhry.

[42][43] Around 2000, Forman was in talks to direct a film about the early life of Howard Hughes with screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, and Edward Norton in the role of the eccentric young billionaire.

[44] Around 2001, Forman was set to direct and co-write the comic crime caper Bad News, adapted from the novel by Donald E. Westlake.

In the early 2000s, Forman developed a film project to be titled Embers, adapted by Jean-Claude Carrière from Hungarian novelist Sándor Márai’s novel.

The film was about two men in the former Austria-Hungary Empire from different social backgrounds who become friends in military school and meet again 41 years later.

[59] Named 30th greatest Czech by Největší Čech[71] Forman's films One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus were selected for the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 1993 and 2019 respectively[72] Directed Academy Award Performances The Milos Forman Stories von Antonin J. Liehm ISBN 9781138658295