OSCARS 2026: Sentimental Value (2025)

This is not a hard and fast rule, for nothing ever is, but: Once a director gets the Academy's attention, they tend to notice you again. The logic is sound as an Oscar nomination tends to make someone a lot more recognized. Norwegian writer/director Joachim Trier made a name for himself in his home country, and the international art house scene, with his earlier features. 2006's “Reprise” and “Thelma” were submitted to the Academy as Norway's official selection for Best Foreign Language Film with no success.  However, 2021's “The Worst Person in the World” finally got voters' attention, not only scoring an International Feature nomination but also one in Best Original Screenplay. His latest, “Sentimental Value,” signals Trier truly arriving at last, at least among the American awards show set. It's grabbed nine nominations, including one for Trier in Best Director, which is impressive for a movie mostly in another language. 

And all it took was Trier making a movie about the film industry's favorite topic: The film industry. Norwegian filmmaker Gustav Borg largely walked away from his wife and two daughters, Nora and Agnes, and the family home in Oslo. After his wife's death, he returns to the house with an idea: His latest script is inspired by his mother, a former prisoner-of-war who committed suicide in the home when he was seven, and he wants Nora to play the part. Though Nora is a successful stage actress, she refuses to do so. A chance encounter leads to an American movie star, Rachel Kemp, being cast in the role. This results in Netflix agreeing to fund the film, in contrast to the previous difficulty Borg has had getting budgets for his work. After spending time with Agnes, Gustav decides to cast his grandson in the film as well, straining his relationship with his other daughter. Rachel feels insecure about playing a role so clearly intended for Nora, pushing Gustav to reconnect with his estranged daughters. Overcoming all that baggage will not be easy.

The opening scene of “Sentimental Value,” overseen by an omniscient narrator, is not devoted to introducing any of the film's principal characters so much. Instead, it presents us with the family's home. Much of “Sentimental Value” takes place in this house, a handsome if plain two-story residence. It is where Gustav grew up, where his mother died, where Agnes resides, and where her son is growing up too. A few times, the film flashes back to a prior decade in this building, showing the little details of the home that have revealed themselves to the family over the years. Such as how the kids would ease drop on their mother's therapy session through a vent that runs from the second floor down to the first. These are like quirks to a human being's personality, distinguishing features that make a person and a place unique. If homes can be said to have personalities, they can also be said to have memories. And those memories are long. In its best moments, “Sentimental Value” shows how places stand as quiet observers of their own history. How arguments and exchanges would echo through these walls or how small incidents, like a dropped glass, can make an impression as much as the big events. Saying “the house is also a main character” is a cliché but “Sentimental Value” happens to use it well. 

To use another much abused literary cliché: If these walls could talk, they would surely have a lot to say about the overlapping generations that have made its rooms their home. Gustav and Nora do not get along. As parent and children often are, this might be because they have a lot in common. Both are stubborn and a bit self-centered but also overcome with doubts. Gustav fears that his industry has passed him by, that all his friends are dying, and that he's lost his insight. He suppresses these concerns with alcohol. Nora, despite her success, still has paralyzing bouts of stage fright and is currently involved in an affair with a married colleague. They are, in a sense, shadows and reflections of each other. Gustav's script is inspired by his late mother but he hopes to cast his daughter in the part, later casting his own grandson to play a role inspired by himself. Much of the central drama of “Sentimental Value” revolves around Gustav deciding to cast a movie star in the lead role instead, a person from outside the family having trouble integrating themselves into this web of relations and connections. A key dream sequence in “Sentimental Value” depicts Gustav's face morphing into his daughters and mother's face, back and forth, as shadows pass over them. Yes, if a house a memory, it would notice the way patterns tend to repeat themselves, how people can assume malleable roles back and forth across their own histories.  

Unfortunately, “Sentimental Value” is not a movie solely about the contrasting, and contradicting, ways parents and children and grandparents tend to mirror each other or how places connect different generations. We do not learn too much about the script Gustav has written that motivates much of the plot, aside from its inspiration in his own past. This is Trier hedging his bet: If a piece of writing is suppose to be moving art, that puts a lot of expectations on it. If the resulting script isn't as good as all the characters say it is, the entire emotional center of the narrative falls apart. This, however, becomes a problem when “Sentimental Value's” entire resolution hinges on someone being so moved by the writing. The meaningful climax of the film is a knowing, understanding nod between two people. Keeping the emotions subtle and understated is fine. However, it does make “Sentimental Value” feel a bit contrived during its most important stage. As if the screenwriter is saying “This script is brilliant, brilliant enough to change someone's mind, but, uh, I can't show it to you.” 

It is evident very early on that this project is Gustav's way to process the grief and guilt he feels over his own mother's suicide and his distant bond with his daughters. How grief can be transformed into art – also the topic of another 2026 Best Picture nominee – is a worthy subject. How a piece of fiction can be about multiple things at once is too. However, Trier's film falls a little short in exploring the complexities of that. The last act of “Sentimental Value” is disappointing, in the flat way it shows how the unspoken pain of a parent can strain any bond their child will develop with their own off-spring. Joachim Trier is twenty years older than me but “The Worst Person in the World” showed a keen understanding of the neurosis of the millennial generation. And if everyone else my age is a little like me too, that means their thirties have also included a lot of learning to understand their own parents. You learn more about yourself and realize Mom and Dad surely dealt with that too, likely with the fewer tools their time and place provided. “Sentimental Value” clearly touches on that but I wish it did so with more depth, instead of pushing the thorny business of forgiveness and reconciliation that comes after that realization in-between scenes. 

As far as a drama about one generation's Mommy Issues leading to Daddy Issues for the next and so on, “Sentimental Value” is keenly acted. You need an actor like Stellan Skarsgård in a role like Gustav Borg. You need someone who has lived more than a bit and can accurately convey the feeling of carrying a lifetime of regrets around behind sad but quiet eyes. He accurately brings to life the dynamic of a man who still hasn't figured out how not to piss people off by being himself but is desperately trying to get better. Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas are both very good as Nora and Agnes, saying much with an eye roll or nod. “Sentimental Value” is a film of emotions more understated than shouted, a mode both Reinsve and Illeaas excel at. As the outsider in the story, Elle Fanning has an interesting arc as someone floundering to insert themselves into a familial drama that previously existed without them. Fanning is wonderful, resisting making Kemp a spoiled Hollywood brat in favor of someone who chose acting genuinely out of a wish to understand other people. A scene where an interview disparages her latest movie, Skarsgård coming to her aide, shows Fanning can suggest a lot with only her eyes and face too. 

For a handful of moments, “Sentimental Value” becomes a quiet comedy about a clueless grandfather trying to connect with his iPad kid grandson, which ultimately has a rather sweet conclusion. That is a much more charming depiction of how art can bring people together than the resolution. I wish the film mined that element more, playing the weird tension that can only exist between parent and child for uncomfortable but honest laughs. Nevertheless, “Sentimental Value” is an expertly acted film that contains many interesting and fine ideas within. An artier movie told from the house's perspective – think something like Sodenberg's “Presence,” also from last year – probably would've been more my style but take out the film industry angle and I don't know if the Academy would have liked this one as much. [710]