Norwegian film Sentimental Value has just notched up a whopping nine Oscar nominations, making history with nominees in all four acting categories. Seriously impressive for a predominantly non-English film.
Joachim Trier’s follow-up to international breakthrough movie The Worst Person in the World has been picking up the gongs since the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. Six wins at the European Film Awards were quickly followed by Best Supporting Actor for Stellan Skarsgård at The Golden Globes, together with seven other nominations.
The press and social media have been buzzing with all the critical acclaim for the film. 74-year old Stellan Skarsgård found a whole new audience with his wonderful grumpiness at the Critics Choice Awards dinner and his playful conversations with son Alexander have been maxing out the views on TikTok and Instagram. Renate Reinsve wowed the likes of Vogue with her Louis Vuitton dress and has given some lovely, open and insightful interviews.
Trier’s standout film explores how feelings, silences and failures are passed down within families, and all the praise for Sentimental Value has arguably shifted him from ‘important European director’ to comparisons with Ingmar Bergman.
Sentimental Value’s plot is simple but beautifully observed. A long-estranged family is quietly pulled back together when a distant father, played by Stellan Skarsgård, reappears in the lives of his two adult daughters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). Once a celebrated artist, he now returns as a slightly awkward presence, forcing everyone to confront years of unresolved emotional distance.
Set largely within everyday spaces, the film follows a series of small, intimate moments. Conversations falter, old habits resurface, and unspoken feelings linger. Over the course of two hours and 13 minutes – which never drags – the film explores what it means to reconnect with people who know you better than anyone, and how difficult it can be to move forward when the past is still painfully present.
The film deals so well with themes that resonate with all of us – repressed feelings, emotional restraint, unspoken anger, parenthood and moral responsibility – that it’s not surprising that it’s received so much critical acclaim.
Sentimental Value is the most commanding and emotionally assured film of Joachim Trier’s career. It revisits long-standing issues of memory, family and emotional inheritance but in a more mature and accomplished way. While Reprise and Oslo, August 31st were loved by arthouse audiences, they were undeniably uncomfortable watching at times. Sentimental Value is utterly compelling and genuinely accessible for more mainstream international audiences. The casting of Elle Fanning in a supporting role clearly adds to its global box office appeal.
The screenwriting delivers truly believable and naturalistic dialogue and the structure of the film has a slower, ‘novelistic’ sense of time, which is more akin to the film making of Bergman in the 60s and 70s. In line with this, the direction is notably restrained, allowing for silences and slower rhythms.
The Art direction is extremely good. The focus on domestic interiors in Oslo, that are flooded with natural daylight, enables scenes to run for longer periods of time and helps to focus the attention of the characters.
And with all good films, it’s the actors that are the real stars of this film. Renate Reinsve’s performance is quite exceptional. Her character experiences the greatest difficulty with the return of her father, and Reisnve’s plays this with real emotional depth, rawness and intensity. It’s a complex part to play and – cliché though it may be – Reisnve delivers a masterclass in restraint, allowing frustration, tenderness, and long-held resentment to play out without slipping into forceful dramatics.
In several interviews, Reisnve describes the character as someone who has learned to be functional rather than emotionally articulate, which clearly shaped her decision to play many scenes with such restraint. So much is communicated through micro-expressions, pauses and withheld reactions.
And while Reisnve is very much in the early stages of career, Skarsgård is at the other end of the spectrum. You could call it a late career peak or maybe a showcasing of everything he has done well over the past decades.
Skarsgård plays the father character with real emotional exposure, leaning into his familiar acting traits of gruffness and reserve with exceptional ease. He conveys regret and failure but shows little interest in sympathy or redemption. Skarsgård has said that he was drawn to the role because it allowed him to explore male emotional failure without explanation, trusting the audience to work it out.
And if all this seems like it might be too heavy and intense, don’t worry, the film is quite funny at times. The opening scene, where Renate Reinsve’s character is seriously struggling with first-night nerves before going on stage, is treated with effortless, understated Nordic humour.
Sentimental Value is deservedly winning so many awards, and it will clearly be an audience winner when it hits the streaming platforms (Prime, Apple, MUBI and likely others). But don’t wait. See it at the cinema; it’s well worth the trip.
“Sentimental Value is deservedly winning so many awards, and it will clearly be an audience winner when it hits the streaming platforms. But don’t wait. See it at the cinema; it’s well worth the trip“
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