He became famous in 1967, when his first full-length film Closely Watched Trains won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The second chance to gain the price came in 1986 with his dark comedy My Sweet Little Village.
Combination of a humanistic view of the world with surprising sarcasm is typical for films made by Menzel. Some of his films are based on novels by Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal.