The period in Croatian cinema after the abandonment of Yugoslavian political, social and cultural context in 1991, as well as the subsequent redifinition of the national cinema system, can rightfully be called the period of Croatian contemporary feature film. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze various thematical structures of the modern Croatian feature films as well as to interpet the results of the study while keeping in mind both political and social factors prevalent at the time of their making and, furthermore, to explore and determine the predominant thematic preoccupations of Croatian film directors, which areas of life tend to problematized in the sub-themes and which thematic motifs are used in order to enrich the film's narrative. The qualitative method of grounded theory provided the deep insight into the subject matter, while the use of symbolic interactionism lead to an interpretative approach to the results of the study. This cultural and scientific approach to contemporary Croatian feature films gives us a deeper insight into the still under-researched period of Croatian cinema, but also helps establish the framework necessary for a deeper understanding of the Croatian contemporary audiovisual culture. This study examines the themes of 39 films which won either the Grand Golden Arena for Best Film or the Golden Gate of Pula audience award (or both) at the most prominent Croatian annual film festival – Pula Film Festival – in the period between 1991 and 2016. The analysis shows us that the most popular themes include existential crisis and the question of identity in the context of newly established socio-symbolic order. Thematically speaking, Croatian contemporary feature film is very sensitive in its depiction of a society burdened with war trauma and national divides and some directors use layered thematic structure in order to sucessfully illustrate the problems of Croatian society of the day, as well as to canalize the socio-political critique.