The Oscar winners 2026 are rejoicing, and one Nordic country can celebrate its first-ever win in the best international feature film category of the Academy Awards — Norway.
The country got through from the 15-title shortlist to the final five and on Sunday received the Oscar for Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi), directed by Joachim Trier and written by him and Eskil Vogt. The star-studded cast features Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning and Anders Danielsen Lie.
“Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. I’m just a film nerd from Norway,” Trier said when accepting the honor. “Thank you so much, honestly, this means the world to me. Thanks to the Academy and thanks to Neon, who brought a film over here, and MK2, who helped us.”
He continued, “This film is about a very dysfunctional family, and it’s the opposite of what I felt with this beautiful group behind me. I think I’ve made films to feel at home with people and I’ve really felt at home with the crew. There’s 1,072 people in these credits and I love them all and I share this with them. The cast behind me, I’ve never been so proud. Thanks for wanting to work with me.”
After sharing his appreciation for his family, Trier added, “Because I’m in this category, I feel I represent global filmmakers, and in a moment like this, I just wanna recognize the wonderful films we were nominated together with. Important, beautiful films that reflect our present crisis and the crisis of the past. And I want to end by paraphrasing the wonderful American writer James Baldwin, who makes us remember that all adults are responsible for all children, and let’s not vote for politicians who don’t take this seriously into account.”
The family melodrama, which recently also won six honors at the 38th European Film Awards, sees sisters Nora and Agnes (Reinsve and Lilleaas) reuniting with their estranged father, Gustav (Skarsgård), a once-renowned director who offers Nora a role in what he hopes will be his comeback film. Nora turns him down, only to discover that an eager young Hollywood star (Fanning) will play the part.
Sentimental Value premiered in competition at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix.
Sentimental Value was the seventh Norwegian film nominated for the best international feature Oscar, but the country had never won until Sunday. Trier’s 2021 movie The Worst Person in the World had also been nominated.
The Norwegian Oscar Committee, in selecting the film for the Academy Awards, praised Trier as “a filmmaker who is confident, assured, and fully at the height of his storytelling talent.” It also called the film “exquisitely well-crafted in every aspect,” highlighting its focus on a “complex father–daughter relationship.”
The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic, David Rooney, gave the film a rave review at Cannes, praising the “exquisite” film for its “faint traces of Bergman… but also Chekhov and Ibsen,” making the story “intensely affecting in a movie freighted with melancholy but also leavened by surprising notes of humor.” And he emphasized: “As always with Trier’s films, its depth of feeling sneaks up on you without announcing itself.”
English (US) ·