{"id":285554,"date":"2026-01-15T10:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T10:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/285554\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T10:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T10:18:13","slug":"joachim-trier-rejoices-as-sentimental-value-passes-20m-at-global-b-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/285554\/","title":{"rendered":"Joachim Trier Rejoices As Sentimental Value Passes $20M At Global B.O."},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE:<\/strong> Joachim Trier<\/a>\u2019s buzzy awards contender Sentimental Value<\/a> has surpassed $20 million at the international box office in a performance that puts it on track to push Kon-Tiki from its perch as the highest-grossing Norwegian-language film of all time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film has grossed $21.9 million at the global box office, per figures collated from distributors and sales agent mk2 films. It has yet to release in key markets Italy and Japan, while Neon will re-release the drama in the U.S. on January 25.<\/p>\n

\n\tEspen Sandberg and Joachim R\u00f8nning\u2019s 2012 Pacific Ocean adventure Kon-Tiki grossed $23.1 million overall, while Trier\u2019s buzzy 2021 The Worst Person in the World posted a global box office of $13.1 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Deadline\u2019s Critics Pick Their Top 10 Films Of 2025<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBy comparison, Trier\u2019s earlier works Reprise, Oslo, August 31st, the English-language drama Louder Than Bombs and Thelma grossed $1.2 million-$1.5 million each.<\/p>\n

\n\tSentimental Value stars Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as sisters trying to reconnect with their estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsg\u00e4rd), an egotistical director who is trying to revive his once-stellar career. Elle Fanning puts in a supporting appearance as an actress he casts in his new film.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince premiering at Cannes in May, where it sparked a 26-minute ovation<\/a> and won the Grand Prix<\/a>, Sentimental Value has been on a festival mega tour, with Trier and his team now on the awards-season circuit, with the film in the running as Norway\u2019s Oscar entry<\/a> and in the wider categories.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Joachim Trier And Renate Reinsve On \u2018Sentimental Value\u2019, 15 Years And Three Films: \u201cI\u2019m So Proud That We Keep Working Together\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the Golden Globes, where Skarsg\u00e4rd won Best Supporting Actor,<\/a> and the National Board of Review gala, where Ibsdotter Lilleaas won Best Supporting Actress,<\/a> Trier and the Sentimental Value team head next to the European Film Awards in Berlin<\/a>, where the film is the front-runner.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tDeadline caught up with the director in New York over Zoom ahead of a screening there Wednesday night and then a flight back to Europe. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: \u2018Sentimental Value\u2019: Read The Screenplay For Joachim Trier\u2019s Cannes Winner About Artists, Family And Trauma<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"International<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tStellan Skarsg\u00e5rd and Renate Reinsve in \u2018Sentimental Value\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKasper Tuxan\/Neon\/Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:<\/strong>\u00a0Congratulations on the box office success. Why do you think this film has drawn a bigger cinema audience than your past works?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tJOACHIM TRIER:<\/strong> This one seems to be the most homogeneous in the feedback I\u2019m getting from all the different countries and cultures that I\u2019ve have spoken to until now. I\u2019ve done films in the past that have had different trajectories. Oslo, August 31, for example, was about the existential crisis of a man with addiction issues. In France, they only talked about the existentialism. In the U.S., they only talked about addiction.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe risk of doing Sentimental Value, which led me to say \u201ctenderness is the new punk\u201d in Cannes, was that I knew I was out on a limb by trying to make something lucid and simple. It\u2019s about the fundamentals of our lives, like what is it to be siblings, family, parent, child.<\/p>\n

\n\tGrowing up in the \u201990s and being a bit of an ironic guy \u2026 I was a bit scared. But I think that\u2019s what paid off. In Norway<\/a> at least, where we know most about the demographic breakdown of the audience, we have 15-, 16-year-olds on TikTok crying and sharing, and then we have old people and people in between. It\u2019s a bigger range. The Worst Person in the World, which at the time was a big success for me, appealed more to young adults and pop culture-focused audiences, while this is wider. I think it\u2019s because family is a more universal theme.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:<\/strong>\u00a0What did you draw on for the sibling relationship \u2014 your children, your own siblings?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER: <\/strong>I have two daughters. One of them, we had her right after I finished the screenplay and they\u2019re the same age apart as the sisters in the film and I\u2019m trying not to be Gustav. \u2026 I also have siblings. They\u2019re also storytellers. My brother is a filmmaker as well, primarily in feature documentary, and my sister is a photographer and a curator in a large museum in Norway for photos. We\u2019re interested in telling stories on a fundamental, human level. Like Joan Didion said, we need to tell stories in order to live, but then how do we negotiate being siblings from the same home and still feeling different. Without this being biographical, I think all siblings have this feeling. \u2026 That interested me as drama.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Sentimental<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRenate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in \u2018Sentimental Value\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNeon<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t make antagonists. I\u2019m a humanist filmmaker. I come out of that tradition. I\u2019m interested in people, even if they\u2019re terrible to each other, like the father, who is obviously a narcissistic, avoiding man but also a human being, doing his best, grappling with a difficult childhood himself. All that stuff interests me. How can we make something engaging and dramaturgically original, in terms of story structure, out of things that are seemingly very everyday, simple, and elevate it to be cinema so it doesn\u2019t become a chamber drama with people sitting talking around a table. I feel cinema is also pop art in that you can\u2019t avoid being a bit catchy, but how do you take that to a more serious place?<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think the focus on the home and questions around whether a house is a home resonated?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER:<\/strong> To quote Hal David and Burt Bacharach, a house is not a home. Yes, this longing for connectedness is stronger in our culture than ever. We have all these mechanisms around us that are pretending that we are in communication and close, and maybe we aren\u2019t necessarily in the same house. There\u2019s something going on right now where we\u2019re reckoning with a lot of disconnectedness and fragmentation of information, also in interpersonal relationships. \u2026 Since the film was released, I\u2019ve been having conversations in which people are saying that it\u2019s a political statement to try to be a humanist and see the other, because things are very polarized and dark, and I take that to heart. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessarily about avoiding being vocal and political and angry and sad \u2014 that\u2019s OK, and that should happen too. I\u2019m not diminishing that, but I\u2019m saying that we need art that also creates hope of connectedness. I go to the movie theater to be with others.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:<\/strong>\u00a0Which brings us your experiences on the festival circuit over the past seven months. Outside of Cannes, are there any screenings or audiences that particularly stand out?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER:<\/strong> The Lightbox in New York and in San Sebastian. They both had this moment when suddenly they turn on the light and you\u2019re standing a little bit above the audience and receiving the applause. To see people\u2019s faces, those who have been emotionally engaged, has been very moving to us. \u2026\u00a0Telluride, for the first time in my life, was very interesting. It\u2019s such a film-savvy, isolated place, and let\u2019s be honest, there\u2019s a lot of pressure at that festival. It\u2019s like a \u2018Hmm, OK, now summer has settled. What are we left with?\u201d kind of thing. \u00a0But I felt that we had amazing conversations, and I was told that Oprah Winfrey supposedly wept. \u2026 That\u2019s special for a guy from Norway going into the mountains that look kind of like Norway and having Oprah Winfrey at your movie.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:<\/strong>\u00a0Sentimental Value is among a number of non-English-language films with potential to cross over as a contender in the main categories at the Oscars this year. What do you think is behind this trend?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER: <\/strong>We don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen with Academy Awards. We\u2019d be grateful with any nomination. I think Hollywood is not what it used to be, and everyone agrees. It\u2019s become a more international place. The Academy has taken in members from around the world. When I grew up, I always loved, being from Europe, that Bergman, Fellini and Almod\u00f3var \u2026 were there once in a while, that a European director got nominated for best director, or screenplay or something. It kind of made the Oscars even cooler, that they were actually considering everyone, and not just the local L.A. favorites.<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: The 2026 Oscars: Everything We Know About The Ceremony, Host, Date & More So Far<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tBut I also think what\u2019s happening is that the films that I was inspired by a lot \u2014 The Breakfast Club, Kramer vs. Kramer, Ordinary People \u2014 these films with really amazing great performers, these humanist dramas that Hollywood used to be the best at, it\u2019s not so easy to make in America anymore. Maybe some of us are kind of filling those spots a bit by being allowed to make personal movies on a big budget, or rather bigger budgets. Stellan said at the Golden Globes that it\u2019s a small Norwegian film. It\u2019s true in the context of publicity and the campaigns and everything. We are tiny compared to the studios, but we\u2019re also at the same time shooting for 60 days and prioritizing. We\u2019re making less money, but we\u2019re shooting on 35 and we\u2019re trying to create a movie like in the old days, with real attention to actors and stuff like that. I think that creates a different type of breadth. It\u2019s a different taste that I think a lot of people are longing for that at the moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: It\u2019s interesting that when you made your English-language debut Louder the Bombs with Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne and Isabelle Huppert, there was a lot of talk about its international potential, but it\u2019s Norwegian-language Sentimental Value that has delivered your biggest global box office. The world has changed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER:<\/strong> Isn\u2019t that wonderful that I can make a film up the street from where I live, with actors, most of whom are local, actors like Inga, who was a tremendous discovery for me. I didn\u2019t know her at all, and we had hundreds of people in for casting. Now she\u2019s being considered for these big awards and getting several of them. And I think that\u2019s kind of cool, and it\u2019s a generous thing. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s only us that should be proud. I actually think that the cinema world becoming international is good for everyone.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:<\/strong> But what about the casting of Elle Fanning? Was that partly to draw in international audiences?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER<\/strong>: No, we had this weird climate after The Worst Person in the World, sort of like, \u201cOK, the next one, they\u2019re probably not going to like it, because we had a success, so let\u2019s just be hardcore and do what we want to do.\u201d And I just wanted to work with good actors. And Elle is a good actor. That\u2019s my most honest answer. It was fun and it was amazing, her and Stellan, but it wasn\u2019t about speculation for international attention.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tElle Fanning at the \u2018Sentimental Value\u2019 photocall at Cannes<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKristy Sparow\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tHonestly, I\u2019m so naive about every level I go since Reprise. It was also internationally distributed, but as a Norwegian debutante director, I hadn\u2019t expected that. And then Oslo, August 31st became almost a cult film in France, where it was huge success. Every time I think I\u2019ve reached like, \u201cOh my God, I didn\u2019t expect it to be big.\u201d And now we kind of blew off the roof again.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: What does the box office performance for Sentimental Value mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER: <\/strong>That people are watching in the theaters, that\u2019s what it means. It means that someone spent their night going into a dark room with other people and hopefully felt something. And since it\u2019s so many, some of them must have told a friend to go as well. I think that\u2019s tremendous. I\u2019m not one of these filmmakers who are like, \u201cI don\u2019t care about the audience.\u201d I really care. I\u2019m completely hardcore and I do my thing, but to have it seen. And what I said in Cannes, which was rather spontaneous. It wasn\u2019t planned. After the long ovation, Thierry handed me the mike and I said, \u201cI make films like Bu\u00f1uel for my friends and tonight, I feel you\u2019re all my friends.\u201d \u2026 It\u2019s almost like you can have very intimate conversations with strangers through making movies.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: You head off to the European Film Awards<\/a> in Berlin this weekend. They\u2019re not as big as the Oscars, but what they do mean for you? Is it important to be there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s great. They\u2019ve placed it in the awards season, and here\u2019s the thing: The critics, the awards, the ovations, the different groups that vote \u2014 all of this is a possibility for different voices to support film, and it widens the group of films that get seen. lt\u2019s a good thing. And I think for us, the European Film Awards is going to be exciting, fingers crossed. It gives attention to our movie, and hopefully some praise already by nomination to my cast and crew. I\u2019m very happy about it. I somehow felt in the past they were a little bit out of sync, and this year we\u2019ve got all the films from across Berlin through to Venice, and all the other festivals.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE:<\/strong> Despite the success you\u2019re enjoying with Sentimental Value, do you think you\u2019ll ever be tempted to take on a bigger-budget English-language, Hollywood-style film, or are you going to stay close to your Norwegian roots and the talents around you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tTRIER<\/strong>: I think the latter. \u2026 I think what\u2019s amazing \u2014 to give a bit of shout-out to Maria [Ekerhovd] and Andrea [Berentsen Ottmar], our wonderful producers, is that they have managed to create what I think is a path forward of a mixture of different investors in different territories coming together to give filmmakers final cut and control without one place taking all the risks. And I think Neon has been wonderful in America, and we have Mubi in the UK, and several places, we have MK2 doing sales, with Alexandre Mallet-Guy at Memento in France for cinema, and then we have Nordic Film in Norway. It\u2019s a lot of different really great local companies that know their audiences, that have stepped up together to finance this film. And I think that\u2019s a healthy system. And within that system, I can still shoot a pretty good budget movie without anyone losing. Everyone\u2019s got money now, everyone in the group feels the film is a huge success, and no one carried the burden alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Joachim Trier\u2019s buzzy awards contender Sentimental Value has surpassed $20 million at the international box office in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[90108,434,18,117,143278,19,17,34621,11026,5150,34623],"class_list":{"0":"post-285554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-awardsnews","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-european-film-awards","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-joachim-trier","16":"tag-norway","17":"tag-qa","18":"tag-sentimental-value"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115898607574033172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}