A sharply observed family drama about estrangement, inherited pain, and the way art becomes both a weapon and a plea for forgiveness. It sounds emotionally devastating but also wry, intimate, and formally assured, with a strong ensemble and a keen eye for domestic spaces that feel haunted by memory.
91% ★★★★★ (1,055,050)
Sentimental Value
Where to watch: In Theaters
Movie · Drama · R
2025 · 2h 13m · ★ 91% (1M)
Director: Joachim Trier
Starring: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
Overview
Sisters Nora and Agnes reunite with their estranged father, the charismatic Gustav, a once-renowned director who offers stage actress Nora a role in what he hopes will be his comeback film. When Nora turns it down, she soon discovers he has given her part to an eager young Hollywood star.
Director
Joachim Trier
Production
Mer Film, Eye Eye Pictures, Lumen, Zentropa Entertainments, Komplizen Film, BBC Film
Cast
Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Anders Danielsen Lie, Jesper Christensen, Lena Endre, Cory Michael Smith, Catherine Cohen, Andreas Stoltenberg Granerud, Øyvind Hesjedal Loven, Lars Väringer, Ida Marianne Vassbotn Klasson, Vilde Søyland, Sigrid Lorentzen Abelsnes, Mari Strand Ferstad, Eiril Tormodsdatter Solberg, Julia Küster, Olivia Thompson, Iben Policer Havnevik
Where to watch
Hulu
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharply observed family drama about estrangement, inherited pain, and the way art becomes both a weapon and a plea for forgiveness. It sounds emotionally devastating but also wry, intimate, and formally assured, with a strong ensemble and a keen eye for domestic spaces that feel haunted by memory.
Best for
viewers who like intimate family dramas with emotional complexity
fans of films about artists, parents, and damaged reconciliation
people drawn to melancholy tone with dry humor and sharp dialogue
audiences who appreciate European character studies and restrained performances
Skip if
you want a fast-paced or plot-heavy drama
you prefer clean emotional catharsis over ambiguity
you dislike stories centered on family trauma and parental failure
you are not in the mood for a quietly intense, tearful film
Overview
Sentimental Value looks like Joachim Trier at his most exacting: a family drama where every room, glance, and withheld apology carries history. The setup is simple but potent — an absent father, two sisters, and a comeback project that turns into a fresh wound — yet the emotional architecture seems carefully layered, with art and family constantly reflecting and distorting each other.
Worth noting
What stands out is the film’s interest in inheritance: not just money or property, but temperament, damage, and the stories parents tell themselves about what they owe their children. The house-renovation imagery and the backstage world of performance give the film a chilly, uncanny edge, making domestic life feel almost like a horror movie without ever leaving realism.
Bottom line
The cast sounds ideally matched to this material, especially in the push-pull between wounded restraint and theatrical self-justification. If you respond to films that let sadness, irony, and tenderness coexist in the same scene, this should land hard.
Top Letterboxd reviews
marcus (5★) · 39606 likes
“but we didn’t have the same childhood, i had you”
ash (4★) · 34559 likes
Daddy issues, eldest-daughter trauma, Netflix stopping a character’s passion project from screening theatrically, and a beautiful house undergoing a modern grey renovation; this is covertly the scariest movie of the year.
júlia (5★) · 32035 likes
every kid's dream is to receive the piano teacher and irreversible as a gift
Matt Singer (3.5★) · 31076 likes
Apparently having a movie director for a father is not as fun as Francesca Scorsese’s Instagram account makes it seem.
jarod (4.5★) · 25654 likes
everything is our parents, except our parents, who are their parents. the interminable cycle of projection that governs essentially every aspect of our emotional lives on full display. fabulous!
2005 · Comedy, Drama · 1h 21m · R · Where to watch: Netflix
A sharp, painful family breakup film that captures how children inherit their parents’ bitterness and self-mythology.
Themes
estranged family reunion, parent-child trauma, sibling bonds, art and authorship, forgiveness and resentment, memory and inheritance, performance and identity, grief after loss
Topics
family drama, psychological realism, art-world, estrangement, grief, sibling relationship, parental failure, melancholy, European cinema, character study