Following their beloved mother’s passing, sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve), a neurotic stage actress, and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), a selfless therapist, must contend with their long-absent father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård) barging back into their lives. A once-revered film director now barely evading obscurity’s undertow, he believes that a new, deeply personal project can salvage his career. But when Nora refuses the role he wrote specifically for her, Gustav finds a new muse in an eager but unpolished Hollywood star (Elle Fanning), sending his botched reconciliation spiraling further into chaos.
Joachim Trier’s superb follow-up to The Worst Person in the World sees him collaborating once more with Reinsve to craft an endlessly expressive, utterly transfixing protagonist whose mercurial nature keeps us on tenterhooks. Skarsgård’s knack for finely calibrated gestures is likewise a wonder to behold, pitting Gustav’s oversized ego against his burgeoning conscience as they wrestle for dominion. Abetted by outstanding performances, Trier mines both humour and heartbreak from these damaged souls’ attempts to mend their frayed family ties.
A story about home, inheritance, and fiction’s ability to reveal truths capable of bringing alienated individuals together, it’s a tumultuous, moving triumph.
Nick Schager, Daily Beast
Sentimental Value is about art and history and emotional openness, but it’s more than anything a playful but also wondrously frank exploration of what it actually means to be family.
Alisson Willmore, New York magazine
Trier’s lightness of touch makes a striking contrast to the film’s emotional weightiness. Death haunts this movie, as it does other of Trier’s features, and while “Sentimental Value” has bursts of pure comedy (it can be very funny), it’s steeped in melancholy… Trier’s filmmaking is always easy to admire, and his facility for shifting among tones and moods is astonishing.
Manohla Dargis, New York Times
Joachim Trier
Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
Norway/France/Denmark/
Germany/Sweden
2025
In English and Norwegian with English subtitles
Grand Prix, Cannes 2025
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Eva Yates, Tom Quinn, Jeff Deutchman, Alexandre Mallet-Guy, Fridrik H. Mar, Magnus Thomassen, Kristina Börjeson, Anders Kjærhauge, Ola Strøm, Solène Léger, Nancy Grant, Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt
Producer
Maria Ekerhovd, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar
Cinematography
Kasper Tuxen Andersen
Editor
Olivier Bugge Coutté
Production Design
Jørgen Stangebye Larsen
Original Music
Hania Rani
Also in This Series
Catch some of the best films of 2025, back on the big screen.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
Sinners
This year's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.
Nouvelle Vague
Linklater's love letter to Paris, 1959, and the difficult birth of Jean-Luc Godard's first feature, Breathless, channels the auteur's blithe self confidence and an era of all-encompassing cinephilia. It's the next best thing to being there.
One Battle After Another
PT Anderson's breathless satire is the best political action movie of the year, a defiantly anti-MAGA rallying cry featuring a six pack of crackerjack performances. They'll still be talking about this one 50 years from now.
There's Still Tomorrow
A critical and box office sensation in Italy, Paola Cortellesi's triumphant directorial debut is the tale of a Roman housewife in 1946, who stands up against the routine sexist abuse she suffers. Funny, heartbreaking and inspiring.
Sentimental Value
A once-revered director crashes back into his family’s lives, eager to recruit his daughter for a film role. When she declines, he finds a new muse in an eager but unpolished Hollywood star, sending his botched reconciliation spiraling into chaos.