A Hijacking
Dir. Tobias Lindholm
A Danish cargo ship is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. The pirates demand millions of dollars in…
Songs from the Second Floor
Dir. Roy Andersson
We’ve seen anthology films with three, four, sometimes even five parts, but Songs from the Second Floor comprises forty six…
Babette's Feast
Dir. Gabriel Axel
Sisters Martine and Filippa, daughters of a founder of a religious sect, live a simple and quiet life in a…
Long Way North
Dir. Rémi Chayé
There isn’t a single moment of unnecessarily exaggerated emotion or comedy in this French-Danish animated film, which may keep its…
Control Room
Dir. Jehane Noujaim
For the longest time, American media coverage was skewed to justify the presence of US forces in Arab states. Control…
As It Is in Heaven
Dir. Kay Pollak
A Swedish film about a world-famous conductor who suddenly interrupts his career to return alone to his childhood village in Norrland. It…
Sound of Noise
Dir. Johannes Stjärne Nilsson & Ola Simonsson
When a group of percussionists illegally carry out a city-wide performance act, it’s up to policeman Amadeus Warnebring to stop…
A War
Dir. Tobias Lindholm
A War (Krigen) is a Danish war drama that focuses on Commander Claus Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk) as he leads a…
Force Majeure
Dir. Ruben Östlund
A seemingly well-adjusted Scandinavian Family vacationing in the French Alps experiences a frightening avalanche scare near the beginning of Force…
Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words
Dir. Stig Björkman
A wonderful homage to the woman, actress, and mother based largely on her own archives and interviews with her four…
The Queen of Versailles
Dir. Lauren Greenfield
Lauren Greenfield’s film follows the Siegel family’s decline from opulent abundance to gaudy ruin. Mega wealth, delusions of grandeur, and…
Thelma
Dir. Joachim Trier
Much like the 1976 horror classic Carrie, Thelma centers on a young telekinetic woman whose religious upbringing and sexual repression…
In Order of Disappearance
Dir. Hans Petter Moland
This movie is pretty much in every regard a Norwegian Kill Bill. It’s a dark gory comedy where, naturally, the…
Land of Mine
Dir. Martin Zandvliet
Taking place entirely on beachside farmlands in Denmark, Land of Mine takes a particularly intimate—and visually distinct—approach to war. The…
We Are the Best!
Dir. Lukas Moodysson
We Are the Best! is one movie that may be overlooked largely by viewers, though it perfectly captures counterculture, and relates to…
Triangle Of Sadness
Dir. Ruben Östlund
Among the sea of class satires released in the last year, Triangle of Sadness is one of the better ones.…
Teddy Bear
Dir. Mads Matthiesen
This Danish movie is about a failed 38-year-old bodybuilder who lives with his mom and has never left Denmark. In…
Max Manus: Man of War
Dir. Espen Sandberg & Joachim Rønning
With his outstanding record of resisting the Nazis, Max Manus seems like a pretty cool guy. The well-travelled soldier volunteered…
Copenhagen
Dir. Mark Raso
Though it starts off somewhat slow, I was delightfully surprised at how much I loved this movie. A 28-year-old man…
Pelle the Conqueror
Dir. Bille August
When depicting a novel, book adaptations on film, especially earlier on in the medium, tend to be quite lengthy. The…
Involuntary
Dir. Ruben Östlund
Anthology films are interesting because it’s not just one film on screen– it’s multiple stories, one after the other, that…
Song of the Sea
Dir. Tomm Moore
This animated movie is absolutely wonderful. It’s an Irish production, and the drawings/graphics are so beautiful and different from what…
Kon-Tiki
Dir. Espen Sandberg & Joachim Rønning
Adventure films now seem to only be CGI blockbusters, but it used to be about real world exploration. They were…
Pusher
Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Films about drug dealing aren’t particularly new, but the way Pusher delves into their lives feels different– more realistic than…
Beautiful Something Left Behind
Dir. Katrine Philp
Although (or because) it lacks structure and specific insights into death from the perspective of children, Beautiful Something Left Behind…
The Square
Dir. Ruben Östlund
The Square is a peculiar movie about a respected contemporary art museum curator as he goes through a few very…
Another Round
Dir. Thomas Vinterberg
Director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt) reunites with Mads Mikkelsen to tell the story of four teachers going through a mid-life…
Riders of Justice
Dir. Anders Thomas Jensen
Don’t let the title and poster fool you—Riders of Justice isn’t the testosterone-filled action flick you’d expect going in (though…
Everybody Knows
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem star in this mystery by Asghar Farhadi, the Iranian Oscar-winning director of A Separation and…
Bronson
Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
From the director of Drive comes Bronson, the true story of a man who was sentenced to seven years in…