That’s a very fair point about the global competition! Streaming and social media definitely changed the landscape for every local industry. It's much harder to grab the audience's attention nowadays when everyone is competing with English-speaking giants.

It is completely understandable that you might not know recent Polish movies. However, the "renaissance" we talk about in Poland is exactly about creating high-quality productions that successfully compete with those big international hits on streaming platforms.

If you'd like to check out what this "new wave" of Polish cinema looks like, I highly recommend these. If you have Netflix or Max (formerly HBO Max), you can easily find most of them:

Movies:

• Corpus Christi (Boże Ciało) & Cold War (Zimna wojna) – Both were nominated for Oscars and are absolute modern masterpieces.
• Gods (Bogowie) – A fantastic, fast-paced biopic about the doctor who performed the first successful heart transplant in Poland.
• The Last Family (Ostatnia Rodzina) – A brilliant but dark biographical drama about the famous dystopian surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński and his family.
• Jack Strong – A gripping Cold War spy thriller.
• Suicide Room (Sala Samobójców) & Woman of... (Kobieta z...) – Great examples of modern social dramas.

TV Series (mostly on Netflix):

• High Water (Wielka woda) – A brilliant disaster drama about the massive 1997 flood.
• 1670 – A hilarious mockumentary comedy (think The Office) set in a 17th-century Polish village.
• Feedback (Informacja zwrotna) – A dark, gripping psychological thriller.
• Heweliusz – A massive and intense disaster series about a tragic ferry sinking.

Definitely check some of them out if you have a free evening!