Sentimental Value (2025)

This movie is nominated in 9 categories for the 2026 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, which is an accomplishment in and of itself, and a rarity for an international film that is largely not in English. Joachim Trier has a reputation as an auteur director and this film expands on that—there is an Ingmar Bergman feel to it, which we would now call depicting the effects of generational trauma and in Berman’s time we called it Scandinavian noir. Nora and her sister Agnes have an absent father, Gustav, who is a faded but famous film director. Their mother has died, and Gustav comes home to settle the estate and tries to reconnect with his daughters. He has written a part for Nora—it is an olive branch that she pushes angrily away, and so he tries to go another way with it. Everyone is so clearly damaged and so unwilling to compromise, all to their collective detriments, and while it is painful, oh so hard to watch, it is also brilliant and that is the feeling that stays with you days later after watching this and letting it settle with you for a bit.