One of them, Ján Kadár's and Elmar Klos' The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze, 1965),[9] gave Slovak (as well as Czech and generally Czechoslovak) filmmaking its first Oscar.

Although with a substantial post-war makeover and change of name, the studio continued its production after Czechoslovakia was partly reconstituted in 1945, and the feature film industry began to take off.

During a brief period after the war, the Communists had not yet gained full control, allowing one or two interesting films to be made in the Central European countries, including Paľo Bielik's Wolves' Lairs (Vlčie diery, 1948) in Slovakia.

The title of The Struggle Will End Tomorrow (Boj sa skončí zajtra, Miroslav Cikán, 1951) symbolized the irreversibility of what was shown to be the progress of the working class.

The name of the leading character in Kathy (Katka, Ján Kadár, 1949) was popular at the time, and so her "ascent" to an industrial laborer was laid out as a better future for thousands of young women.

Exceptions among the former included Josef Mach's folkloric musical Native Country (Rodná zem, 1953) with ticket sales, relative to population, among the highest in Slovak filmmaking.

As in neighbouring countries, the early 1960s saw the fruition of the policy of relaxation, which mixed powerfully with external cinematic influences such as Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave to produce Slovakia's first international film successes.

The Czech feature The Cremator (Spalovač mrtvol, 1968), Slovak-born Juraj Herz's grotesque black comedy about the social context of the Final Solution, is a cult film in both Czechia and Slovakia and has an increasing reputation internationally.

By comparison to earlier Slovak films, the three leaned towards avant-garde filmmaking and were consequently more successful in art houses than in wide release: Juraj Jakubisko's two features Deserters and Pilgrims (Zbehovia a pútnici, 1968) and Birdies, Orphans and Fools (Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni, 1969) and Dušan Hanák's 322 (the code for cancer in medical records of diseases, 1969).

Dušan Hanák's acclaimed feature-length documentary Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta, 1972) sought a possible refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive on the margins of official production and yet, executed with a finesse that gave it a wide international appeal.

[20] An elegiac work whose images could apply to Appalachia or any other poor region,[23] Pictures of the Old World still offended the authorities and the distribution was stopped two days after its limited release.

[24] Despite the circumstances, only one film, Martin Hollý Jr.'s Fever (Horúčka, 1975),[25] was produced to advance the Communist Party's coercively negative view of the unprecedented relaxation of communism in 1968.

Dušan Hanák was able to make his poetically realistic Rosy Dreams (Ružové sny, 1976),[26] the first Central European feature film with the Roma at the core of the story and a singular creative achievement of the decade.

The more relaxed conditions became apparent in the 1980s when Slovakia had perhaps its most successful film-making period, and acclaimed directors from the 1960s who had been able to make only short films (Juraj Jakubisko) or only an occasional feature (Dušan Hanák) returned with important and mature works.

Highlights from this period include Hanák's I Love, You Love (Ja milujem, ty miluješ, 1989), Jakubisko's A Thousand-Year Old Bee (Tisícročná včela, 1983),[8] Uher's She Grazed Horses on Concrete, AKA A Ticket to Heaven (Pásla kone na betóne, 1982),[27] Martin Hollý's Signum Laudis (1980), Zoro Záhon's The Assistant (Pomocník, 1982) and Dušan Rapoš's A Fountain for Susan (Fontána pre Zuzanu, 1986).

Ironically, the work of the only major Slovak director to emerge in this period, Martin Šulík,[28] has been more popular internationally, and particularly in the Czech Republic and Poland, than in his native country.